One of the surprising aspects of the new Apple 3G iPhone is just how robust the game selection is. Traditionally, Macs have lagged far behind PCs in this area with most gaming companies totally ignoring bringing their games to OSX. Those that do sometimes release ports of their wares months, even years, after the PC release. Therefore, it’s a joy to see Apple beginning to come around and noticing that the gaming market is incredibly lucrative and, if the reports are correct, the bulk of iPhone APP store purchases are indeed from video games. The biggest problem for consumers though is trying to wade through the copious amount of below par software that is available on iTunes to try and find the gems. Confounding this even more is the severe lack of online reviews and articles about the available software. Relying on comments in iTunes is just about useless as most are nothing more than knee-jerk reactions praising the game as the best thing since sliced bread or the worst piece of garbage ever to be coded. Hopefully, in the future, some of the bigger video game sites will see that iPhone/cell phone gaming is going to boom.

This brings us to Everest: Hidden Expedition an iPhone port of a PC title made by veteran casual game developer, Big Fish Games. To understand what exactly the game entails one just needs to see what genre it comes from on Big Fish Games’ website – the Hidden Object Game. The goal of the game is simple. Under the rather flimsy pretense that the player is in a race with three other teams to find the treasures and secrets of Everest the game takes you on a worldwide adventure to find clues to unlock the mystery. My advice? Ignore the pastiche of a plot and focus on what you are really tasked to do.

Putting it simply, the game presents you with a static, though nicely drawn piece of art showing the location you are currently searching for clues except the whole picture is filled with numerous objects of every type from sports equipment, fruit, animals, vases to guns and swords. It’s as if someone threw all their belongings out onto the street in a jumbled mess. The object of the game is to find the items that the game asks of you. For example, you make it to Hong Kong. As soon as the image of Hong Kong appears a smaller text list of items is displayed at the bottom of the screen. These are the items you need to find in the image. A simple tap on the correct item removes it from your list.

To attempt to add some tension a progress bar runs below the picture showing the various teams and how well they are doing finding the objects. Obviously, three teams are A.I. controlled but the player has his/her own indicator as well. With every successful item found the progress bar jumps ahead on the bar. A.I. teams just increase at a steady rate unless you try to cheat and randomly mash your fingers all over the screen in a vain effort to click items you need. In this case the game will cause your iPhone to shake and penalize you by boosting the progress of your A.I. competitors.

If you really do get stuck trying to find a particular object do not despair as there’s a hint timer given to you. This works like a clock by having a hand turn clockwise over the face. After it does one complete rotation it lights up indicating to the player that a free hint has become available. If you press the face of the clock the game will automatically reveal the general location of one of your pending items. While this might sound like you can just afford to sit back and wait till the clock fills over and over to reveal items let it be known that the time wasted would inevitably make you lose to the A.I. teams.

Now, I can hear what you are thinking already – Is this fun? Well, it all depends on what you are looking for. Action gamers should stay far away as the game just boils down to something akin to “Where’s Waldo?” The challenge presented to you is that the items are ingeniously placed on the image so that they blend in extremely well with the environment. A pea pod for example could be placed in the midst of forest plants to obscure it from your view. There is definitely a sense of satisfaction to be had when you discover a particularly well hidden item.

However, if you are not a patient person the game can easily frustrate. There are sure to be times where you want to rip your hair off when you can’t find a needed object. The game’s pace is incredibly sedate with mellow sound effects to boot. I must admit I almost dozed off at one point as I was lying on the floor. My advice – don’t play this if you are already tired and sleepy.

The game though does have a few design quirks that are rather odd and while they don’t ruin the game it gives the impression that the QA team was a bit sloppy in missing them or else the developers didn’t foresee different playing styles. The game, like nearly every casual game in existence, is designed to be played in short bursts such as finishing one location during each play session. The reason why this is easy to discern comes if you decide, like I did, to play large chunks at once. If you do you’ll quickly realize the spastic random way the item list you need to find is generated.

Although the game has many locations there is a lot of backtracking to previous stages. You might start the Hong Kong level, go to Ankor Watt, then Japan and then back to Hong Kong again. The problem lies here when you return to a previous stage as the game has a wicked tendency to ask you to find many of the same items again. If you are playing continuously you are more apt to remember the location of items you just found mere minutes ago. Another problem that may or may not affect players lies with the items themselves. For the most part 99% of them are everyday objects but you’re going to be up a creek if you have no idea how Yin and Yang or a Nautilus looks like. The only recourse if you really don’t have a clue is to use the hint feature.

Those players with a keen eye will find that the game is not particularly difficult and rarely will the A.I. come close to filling the progress bar before you. Even though there are many locales the basic game never changes which leads to monotony quite quickly. Finally, like nearly every game I’ve played on the iPhone to date, once beaten there’s really nothing to bring you back for more. Even worse, there’s no scoring system other than what position you placed in regard to the A.I. teams.

Everest: Hidden Expedition is definitely not a game for everyone with its sedate pacing and brain-cramping game play it might frustrate more than titillate. Actual game play amounts to nothing more than an image treasure hunt. Still, the game does sport higher than usual production values and those who like their games that stimulate their brainpower more than their dexterity might find this title much to their liking. It’s too bad that Big Fish Games didn’t attempt to spice things up between levels by adding new features. Trudging through hours of image hunting takes its toll and without a big payoff it feels more like work than fun.

**1/2 out of ****

Developer: Big Fish Games
Published by: Big Fish Games
Size: 118 MB
Version: 1.1
Released: 11/14/2008