Lookz

The Good
I played this game purely to get a feel for it before documenting it for the database. Having played through similar puzzles in a few hidden object games recently I expected to breeze through the puzzles in this budget game in no time. I was wrong, it's a good solid little title with one hundred levels of genuinely challenging puzzles.

The music and sound are OK and the game mechanics are simple but effective. There's not much else to get excited about but, given the nature of the game not much else is expected. Having three difficulty levels and three cursors is nice but not really necessary and in this case the same can be said for the high score table.

I'm not sure whether it's the game that works so well or whether it's this genre of puzzles that appeals but I found playing 'lookz' to be quite compelling. I expected to play a couple of the puzzles, write about the game and then, as with so many budget titles, just forget it. Instead I struggled to find the differences, played and replayed levels until I completed them.

The surprise for me came when the oven bleeped to advise that my meal was ready. Why did it have to do that? I had two differences to find and just twenty seconds to find them, I didn't need the distraction. That's when I knew I was hooked and that this was a better game than I'd expected it to be.

The Bad
The pictures aren't awesome and the game lets itself down by playing in just 640 x 480 resolution which was pretty low in 2002/3 when it was released. The game plays in a full screen window at that resolution which, on a modern screen, makes the photos look very pixelated.

The Bottom Line
A simple but deceptively simple but effective puzzler that will entice you to play 'just one more level'.