Review – Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Introduction

Historically unproven legend says that the gardens supposedly hanging on the air were build by the King to his beloved Queen. Obviously, the developer of this game – Gameshastra was tempted by the idea of impressing the crowd with the beauty of ancient eastern culture using the fable about Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Still, it is difficult to say how much of the effort put on this game went useless even though first impressions from playing may not always take to correct conclusions. So, we are given an opportunity to try the game by tasting fruits sold in bazaars, touch the carpets made of silk and accompany the Queen begging idols to help her husband in fighting against enemies of Babylon.

Gameplay

It was said at the intro that all brave men including the King left the city. Then you and the Queen who is in loneliness, walk around the rooms and streets of the city and collect everything that would please idols. At the start of the game, several options in the shape of square show up “hanging” in the foreground of some beautiful front yard. Options are very poor; you will not find selections for easy or hard modes. Developers forgot to embed “cancel” key for options and the only way to close the window is “ok” button and if pressed it takes time for game to check if anything was changed. Noteworthy option is capability to save the game at any place you want. It becomes indispensable tool if you decide to break and play later. At the first puzzle, you will need to be keen enough to guess how to start playing it. It took for me many times of useless clicking to find out that double click would put that dagger on the puzzle board and because of that I’ve lost some of the demo time. Scant text prompt didn’t serve its purpose, which is why it happens. By the way that game of daisy chain repeats itself again and again for a few times, enough to get bored of it.

Hidden object games! It is a whole story to talk about. While playing them, I started missing those sharp and crispy items from previous games. Punishment for random clicking was elaborated to the superior level in the game history; they start taking out your scores up to the point when hint sculpture is not refilling anymore and you are left alone to finish the game scene. That is not the end. I was just to sigh with relieve after finding the last item from the list, when next armful of new items came up. The hidden objects would not be so difficult to play, if they were painted more sharply but not in blurred way. Sometimes items are very small to see even after finding them. Objects need to be searched sequentially, can’t recall which, maybe those diamonds. Another thing is why so much of scorpions in one game? Is it to emphasize that we are in the land of deserts and scorpions are everywhere? Hints, when they are available, will do the work for you, but for picking it the mouse cursor needs to be at the exact pixel point otherwise it counts as random click.

Sometime later while playing the game starts feeling like you get used to those issues and moreover you start liking the game. No more issues with hints or hidden objects. That is may be the magic of the game you don’t notice at the beginning.

Sound

It is an ordinary and repeating sound composed with mixture of local folklore and something like jazz music. This music goes everywhere in the game and there is nothing to do with it than muting it off.

Graphics

I have never seen pictures depicting hanging gardens like here in this game. They must be sthe same as story tells. The city with narrow streets, bazaar and houses with structures and waterfalls, many small sphinx and human sculptures on the walls look shiny and gilded under the sun. Make sure to give some rest for your eyes between cut scenes after the strain at blurred hidden games

Conclusion

It is an extraordinary game giving ambiguous impressions. It takes some time to decide whether it is a good or bad game. Given so many issues the game is in the good shape, but it is far from perfection.