Publisher: Alawar Games
Developer: Alawar Games
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista /Win 7, 1 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0, 450 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Hidden Object
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Snark Busters: All Revved Up puts you in the shoes of Jack Blair, a world-famous Formula 0 racer. Jack’s following in the footsteps of his father, who mysteriously disappeared 17 years ago. But after discovering a mysterious green door in his garage, Jack puts his career on hold to try to catch the legendary Snark. As Jack, you have to jump between the real world and the inverted realms inside mirrors to snare your quarry.

The game is broken up into six levels (plus a tutorial level), each of which must be passed before Jack can be admitted into the Snark Busters club. Each level consists of four to six areas (31 in all), each of which begins with two to five objects that are fragmented into several pieces. Your objective is to find all the pieces, then use them in various ways, with the ultimate objective of retrieving the medallion that opens the portal to the next level. Some pieces can’t be found until other tasks have been performed; for example, in one area, you have to find all the parts of a cigarette lighter to light some candles. Until the candles are lit, you can’t see (or click on) the last piece of another object you’ve been trying to assemble.

Fortunately, there’s a comprehensive help function that recharges fairly quickly. Some of the pieces are very cleverly hidden, so unless you’re a veteran of hidden-object games or are just one of those die-hard, never-use-help gamers, you’ll find yourself using the hint system a few times. There are also 21 puzzles along the way, ranging from the straightforward “match the halves of the keys” puzzle in the tutorial level, to a few real mindbenders. If you get too badly stuck on a puzzle, after a certain amount of time you can simply click a “Skip” button to move on.

Snark Busters is a lively game set in a steampunk-like world, with a bright, exaggerated graphical style and plenty of animations to keep things interesting. Also, unlike many hidden-object games, there’s just something about this one that I find compelling. It’s probably the fact that you’re not finding the objects just to be collecting them, but that you also have to figure out where and how to use them.

The first time I played Snark Busters, I played it all the way through from beginning to end in one sitting. This points out one of the game’s weaknesses. Like most casual games, it’s short; you can breeze through it in three to six hours, depending on how often you use the help feature. I found the music to be appropriate for the setting, but the repetitive soundtrack gets annoying after a while, and I ended up turning it off. Also, the hidden objects are in the same place every time through the game, so there’s not much replay value. Not having played the original Snark Busters: Welcome to the Club, I can’t directly compare the two games, but there’s one more thing I want to mention. The game comes bundled with the Bing toolbar. I don’t object to this in general; toolbars are fairly small programs and don’t increase the size of the download much. I just wish that they would make these things opt-in instead of opt-out. Opt-out bundled software is how a friend of mine ended up with six toolbars in his web browser, because he didn’t know that he could opt out.

Snark Busters: All Revved Up is a colorful, vibrant, and most importantly, fun hidden-object game that will provide you with a few hours of entertainment. At a reasonable price of just $6.99, this is a worthwhile addition to your collection of casual games.

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