Antiques Roadshow: Discovering America's Hidden Treasures Review

Turning a show like Antiques Roadshow into a Hidden Object game is a mystery in itself. Some form of appraising game might have been fine and quite interesting, getting players to guess the value of items. A Hidden Object game feels like a larger leap however. Adding a storyline for instance is a little painful, not quite working within the concept. That's not to say that Antiques Roadshow: Discovering America's Hidden Treasures is bad. It's just not really interesting enough to bump it up the list of other Hidden Object games available.

The loose storyline involves Julia, an antiques enthusiast who digs her way around various landscapes in order to find new treasures. It's not quite as simple as that though and it's not long before secret codes emerge and mini games start playing a role. The problem is it's not that interesting a tale.

Much of the time is spent searching around typical landscape scenes such as in a shed or attic. Players have to collect up all the items on the list as is usually the way in such titles. There's the addition of special items to mix things up slightly but the concept is the same. Tap too many times incorrectly and a cloud of dust gets in the way, requiring a swipe of a finger a few times to clear it. It's a nice touch at first. The problem lies in that the game doesn't feel overly sensitive to the touch. A few times, I'd tap an object and it wouldn't respond until I hit just the right spot on the screen. If it was occasional, it wouldn't be so bad but this happened frequently enough to be an irritant.

Besides the Hidden Object segments, there are a few mini games interspersed in which Julia must fix the antiques before submitting them for appraisal (don't get excited: the appraisal part isn't interactive). A classic example of 'don't try this at home' as the antiques would be sure to be ruined by an amateur hand. Some of these mini games are ok; others are quite dull such as one that involves searching through buttons to match corresponding ones up.

Therein lies the problem with Antiques Roadshow: Discovering America's Hidden Treasures. It's just not compelling enough, instead feeling very by the books in terms of what's required of a Hidden Object game. Throw in the fact that controls are a little unresponsive at times and it makes for an average game amongst a sea of other titles that are a more attractive bunch.