Dexter: Hidden Darkness Review

Developer: Bloobuzz
Price: FREE
Version Reviewed: 1.4.1
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5

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If you’ve played games such as Criminal Case or CSI: Hidden Crimes, you’ve played Dexter: Hidden Darkness. It’s effectively a reskin of these titles. As any Hidden Object gaming enthusiast will be able to tell you though, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

What works so well for these games are their trickle feeding of content. No one really wants to spend hours seeking out objects. These games are made for short sessions and accomplishing something in that brief period of time. Dexter: Hidden Darkness scratches that casual gaming itch as well as the others within the field.

As usual, you’re solving crimes through finding objects, completing simple mini games relating to analysis of evidence, and you talk to a few people too. As you’re Dexter, invariably you kill someone at the end of a case too, but there’s no interactive component to this. That's where you realise this could be any story. There's not much connection to the source material.

Finding hidden objects is usually fairly simple. Each of these scenes are designed to take a minute or less to complete. Sometimes, you’ll have a time limit but other times, you can simply take your time. Of course, the faster you are, the more points you gain which go towards earning a star which is used to unlock new things. So, focus on being speedy. Other sections are forms of jigsaw puzzles but, again, it’s simple stuff.

Every once in a while, you’ll have to scan a piece of evidence to spot a trace of something, or you have to uncover something that’s been hidden under a pile of stuff. In every case, Dexter: Hidden Darkness isn’t taxing.

The only real challenge comes from waiting for that energy bar to refresh as it hits empty all too quickly. That’s what restricts you from ever playing Dexer: Hidden Darkness for particularly long. For some, that’ll infuriate but I found it just meant that it was easy enough to dip into when I had ten minutes spare, even if I did know I was being manipulated.

Dexter: Hidden Darkness really won’t tax you, but it will give Hidden Object fans a sense of satisfaction throughout the day. You might begin to wonder just how long the reskinning of Criminal Case can continue to entertain though, and rightly so.