Escape Rosecliff Island Review

Having quite a penchant for the hidden object genre, I was rather excited by the prospect of playing Escape Rosecliff Island on my iPhone. I've already completed it on the PC so I knew what to expect and that's exactly what I got. Escape Rosecliff Island is a near perfect port of the PC version but it does come with a few iPhone based flaws too.

The most apparant one is screen space issues. When the game entirely revolves around searching every nook and cranny of the screen in order to find the many items scattered around, the iPhone screen just doesn't cut it. It's too small. It's not game breaking by any means. You can zoom in after all and it's very easy to do so with a simple double tap of the screen, but it is less than ideal. As I played through the game I quietly kept wishing to myself that I had an iPad (admittedly a common dream of mine). I've no doubt that the iPad version of Escape Rosecliff Island is fantastic and truly equal to the PC edition.

On the iPhone though, it is a little awkward. Zooming in to find each item is relatively simple enough but by zooming in, the picture demonstrates its low resolution with everything looking rather pixelated and blurred. Tapping on each item once you find them is easy and accurate enough but the list of items only displays a few at a time due to limited space, so you have to scroll to see the full list. Small things like this begin to niggle, especially after extended sessions.

Ultimately though, you can't really ask for much more on the iPhone. The hidden object side of things works as you would expect and the mini games are all just as enjoyable as on the PC, comprising of Match three, word searches, jigsaws, a version of pairs and puzzle rotation. It's not a hard game by any means but it is one that will take a fair while to complete, and some of the object clues might make you scratch your head for a while. If you're a fan of the genre like me, you'll love it and being able to play the game on the move. You might find yourself pining for an iPad though.