Secret Mission: The Forgotten Island
Game Review

A mysterious island has suddenly appeared in the Bermuda Triangle, and the US military has sent Chanel Flores to investigate. Unfortunately for the scientist, her plane's systems start to malfunction as she nears the island, and crashes onto the island! Luckily Chanel manages to parachute to safety and lands on the island pretty much unharmed. So begins her adventure of exploring the island and trying to get back to her ship.

As Chanel explores the island, she starts to discover that there's a mysterious force at work there, and that the island has appeared and disappeared over a few centuries (which is apparently due to a phenomenon known as the Hutchison Effect). Entwined in this mystery is a story of doomed forbidden love and a mystical shamanistic power. Your task is to help Chanel unravel these mysteries and help her escape the island.

The first thing that you will notice as you start playing The Forgotten Island is the video quality of the game. Unlike most casual games, this game can actually support very high screen resolutions and looks really clean and sleek (works great on my 1920x1200 LCD). And it doesn't hurt that the artwork in the game is very crisp and top-notch as well!

The game is primarily an adventure game, moving from scene to scene as you explore the mysterious island. There are objects to collect and contraptions to manipulate and interact with as you work your way through the game. There are also hidden areas which launch hidden object scenes when you click on them, and other areas that launch other logic puzzles.

When you start the game, you will be given the choice of playing the game in "easy" or "hard" mode. The "easy" mode will have a tutorial and more hints, while the "hard" mode will be basically all up to you to find out which objects can be interacted with and what order of puzzles you should be trying to solve (I personally think the "hard" mode is way more rewarding and satisfying). Have no fear though; there is an ever-present "to-do" list that will tell you what tasks have yet to be completed for each location.

The hidden object games and mini-puzzles are pretty well done and relatively challenging. The first step in solving the hidden object games is actually finding where they are, as the hidden object scenes are hidden as well! The scenes themselves are pretty challenging and contain objects that are hard to spot, not because they are lost in clutter, but because they blend so well into the background.

The logic puzzles and other mini-games that appear throughout The Forgotten Island are pretty well designed too, and are actually fairly challenging for a change. Be prepared to give your brain a workout on these, especially since the puzzles don't come with instructions! Don't worry if you can't solve them though; after a certain amount of time, you can skip the puzzles if you find them too difficult.

As has been mentioned earlier, the artwork in the game is very crisp and neat with great attention to detail, giving the game an overall polished feel. You can tell that the game has high production values, and that a lot of effort has been put into it. The story borrows a bit from some standard themes, but comes off pretty decently in this game (the Avatar movie used a lot of cliches too, and see how well it did!). Overall, Secret Mission: The Forgotten Island is a nice little gem that is definitely worth your time.

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