Customer Reviews

Escape the Museum

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Escape from the Museum" has the foundation for a first class hidden object-adventure game. The problem is that the designers tried to tie in sophisticated environments and sophisticated little mini-puzzles with cartoon-rendered drawings and really boring and inane dialogue directed at kids. The beautifully rendered scenes of a great natural history museum in collapse after a huge earthquake are worthy of the purchase price of the game, but the drawings of you, as museum curator, and your daughter Caitlin, who are apart and trapped in the museum, are second-rate. The two halves don't match, don't blend, don't work together. The environments get an A, the cartoons and dialog get a C.

"Escape the Museum" is rather unusual for a hidden object game in that it is interesting- interesting in that you are literally thrown together with an incredible amount of stuff you might encounter if you were in a natural history museum and an earthquake occurred. Boom, the earthquake hits! You, a museum curator, are trying to reach your young daughter who is trapped in the administrative area far from where you are. You have to laboriously claw your way out of one room into another, often employing ingenious techniques. which are sometimes logical and sometimes pure fantasy maneuvers. These maneuvers, such as freezing a water leak with liquid nitrogen, are entertaining and often funny.

Along the way you have to locate hundreds of hidden objects, and these are so well camouflaged you have to have eyes like a hawk to find them as they are often very tiny and the various rooms are in a vast state of disarray with a vast number of objects cluttered about. You will be rummaging around Neanderthals, trilobites, medieval armor, Egyptian masks, wild West artifacts, dinosaurs and much more and the detail is positively amazing and as noted above, down right interesting.

It's entertaining to see what is included among the various exhibits- and assembling the objects in each area must have been a mind-boggling task as the artifacts seem to be very authentic and authentically related to each other, a different era and theme for each room you're trapped in.

If you're a hidden object aficionado and enjoy natural history museums, you'll be right in your element with "Escape the Museum" in spite of the inferior cartoons and story dialog. I'm giving the game four stars on the basis of the environments and the mini-puzzles alone which are worthy.

This software is NOT Mac compatible, despite saying so. Two minutes after running it on our Mac, the game froze. Turning the Mac off and then back on didn't quit the game; we had to Force Quit the game, which took some time [option+command+esc]. HOWEVER - we then installed it on our PC and it runs very well.

This game is fun and enjoyable. It probably appeals to kids ages 7 to 12 (give or take), and I certainly enjoy sitting down with a cup of coffee and playing for awhile. When one of kids sit down to play, eventually the other kids look over their shoulder and everyone gets involved in the "I Spy" type sections and puzzle solving.

There are interesting, cluttered-full museum rooms, with detailed graphics, and there's a task for each room - finding a way to escape, collecting items, etc. The item collection is very similar to an "I Spy" game. Other rooms require problem solving skills. The game reuses rooms for different puzzles, which is fun. Once a player figures out how to navigate the rooms, the task icons alone are helpful, so it works for younger players, although there is a need to read for instructions and clues. The concept of being trapped (and the mom and daughter separated during the earthquake aftermath) might be mildly worrisome for young players. The sound can be a little annoying so we just turn that off.

There's a story narrative that's a flat cartoon with voice narration & dialog boxes, which sets up the earthquake story and gives game instructions. There is a "Skip" logo on these dialog pages which doesn't skip the whole screen but only moves along the dialog. Players can skip these dialog sections without compromising game play.

There's a map that shows progress through the game, and which rooms have been "escaped", and a % box shows game progress. Returning to a saved game is easy and the game takes you right to the map to see where you left off.

This is a fun (even when the problem solving gets difficult!) game - just don't try and run it on a Mac!

This game is a bit of a challenge as far as hidden objects are concerned. The good news is nothing is hidden in a black area but cleverly disguised. The other good news is there are limitless hints if you get tired or stuck. Lots of other activities as well and takes a bit of time to get through. Worth the money!

The puzzles in this game are kind of challenging, and solveable, but the hidden objects scenes are nearly impossible. Many of the objects are so totally hidden that even when I get a hint I still can hardly see them, if at all, and a lot of them don't look at all like what they're described as being. I don't think it's that I'm not smart enough, because I have a number of other hidden objects games, and none of them treat me like this one does. I also don't care for the useless conversation the woman carries on between scenes.

After reading reviews, I felt this would be a fun game. When playing it, it's all the same. No interesting puzzles to fiqure out and not what I expected. Have played other hidden object games that were way more fun!

I am 12 and would give this game a 1/2 star rating if I could. I played it for 10 minutes and then was COMPLETELY bored with it. The point of the game is to find hidden objects in different rooms. The things are hidden so that you can hardly even see them. It is so hard it's boring. The most fun part of it was the actual escaping parts, but most of the time you just find stupid objects. This game should be titled "Find the Objects in the Museum."
----I'm her 40-year old Mom, and I totally agree!----

This is a pretty fun hidden object game. The puzzles and the graphics are pretty good. The storyline is not too bad although some of the things they say are kinda dorky.

Overall, if you like these kind of games, I recommend getting this one.

I love to play this game, especially the scenes where you have to figure out how to get out of the rooms.