Faded Reality is a hidden object title that is really confusing. The story isn’t developed very well or told in a way that makes sense, and it ends up abruptly. The hidden object aspect is good, but very simplistic. It has a unique feature that gives it an innovative twist, but doesn’t really elevate the game. And the mini-games, for the most part, are tedious. It’s not a great game, but it could have been.
The story involves a woman who recently had a cornea transplant, giving her back her vision. Along with the new sight, she also sees visions – of the past and – maybe the future? It was hard to understand what was going on beyond the initial concept. The story was told in a sentence or two every new scene and most of those sentences were pretty nonsensical. She was travelling from location to location – places she saw in her vision – trailing behind a murderer killing people who seemed to have something odd about them. It ends quite suddenly and without any explanation or resolution to the story. We suppose it’s a cliffhanger, but we honestly couldn’t care less to learn what happens next, so they didn’t succeed in keeping the story entertaining enough to want to play another round.
The hidden object gameplay is pretty easy to get through. Nothing is too difficult to find and if a player does get stuck, the hint system is quick and easy to use. There’s no variety to this aspect – players are simply presented with a list of objects to find. What is different is that hidden in each scene are several letters that have to be found (the letters are on the list) and once found, can be used to complete a word that removes an object from the scene. Those objects are blocking other things on the list. Items that are visible are highlighted on the list and ones that need some other action to become visible are darker, so it’s pretty clear what can and can’t be found at any given time. Each ‘level’ consists of two scenes which interact with each other – some letters found in the second scene need to be used in the first and vice versa. In theory, this sounds like a great idea, but in practice, it lacks any challenge and actually makes the game simpler than it would be without the find a letter aspect.
Where Faded Reality fails is in its mini-games. There are a few different types that range from tedious to semi-ok. The best game by far is one where players have to use a variety of lamps that point light in different directions to completely light up a scene by placing them on markers. This game is fun but could have been so much better with a little more challenge – it’s really easy to beat those. The worst puzzle, and the one we seemed to run into the most, was one where we had to click on shapes of three sizes to put them together matching by color. It was a completely pointless time waster and not the least bit fun. The other mini-games were only just a bit better, with a boring solitaire match the pairs game and one where we had to click the two halves to torn up cards. Even the anagram puzzle after each level was silly – it pointed to a clue where more evidence in the crimes was revealed in the scene. Just overall, the gameplay outside of the hidden object aspect left us with a bad taste in our mouth.
Faded Reality is not a good game. It actually benefits from us having just played one of the worst hidden object games out there, so we are probably being kinder to it that it deserves. With a pointless and confusing story, terrible mini-games and hidden object gameplay that doesn’t challenge at all, Faded Reality is a game to pass up altogether.
Score: 5.6
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