Mystic Gateways: The Celestial Quest - the game that won't leave you indifferent!

Have you ever dreamt about portals that could take you through the distances and times? That's right the thing you're supposed to do in a new adventure and puzzle hidden object game called Mystic Gateways: The Celestial Quest. Once you enter a house of Edwin and don't find him at home your journey begins. It will take you around the globe, starting in Egypt you'll go to Easter Island and Crimea searching the mysterious Shadow Vanguard. Every member of this secret society will help you to collect some valuable relics that are needed to open each gate to progress through the game. It's more of adventure than the HOG, but despite the multitude locations you will not notice the time passing by!

The graphics are fabulous. Though some of the details made me dumb. If I weren't informed that I got to Brazil I'd think it's Mexico or even India. And as for the the citizen of Ukraine I was more than surprised to know that the dinosaur's skeleton can be found in the Crimea. Ukraine is a rare location in the games. And I was pleased to see the native spaces. Be sure, they are depicted close to life! The sunflowers and the old man in the national clothes are still the same in the backwoods of my country! But there are no dinosaurs, just cows and pigs.

Among the other dignities of the game are the music that changes with the switching between the locations. Progressing the game will make you acquainted with the ethnic flavour of all the places you keep visiting.

If you get stuck, just try to click on people and exhaust all your conversational choices, or check the diary for updates. It helps.

As for the navigation it is pretty intuitive. The icons that appear when you click any item will prompt you what you should do. The possible variants are the feet, the hand, the Egyptian eye (to take a closer look at) and the gear (symbolizes you can use an inventory item). Besides you have a personal tool belt in the upper right side of the screen that involves a brush, a hammer, and a shovel. This items will be used frequently throughout the game. So every time you get a notification that something is dirty, just click on your character to access the belt and to take a brush out.

All the tasks are quite logic so I was passing the levels quite smoothly. If you select the normal mode (not the advanced one) your hint button will charge quickly. So hardly anything could cause you any trouble. Even if you get stuck, just try to click on people and exhaust all your conversational choices, or check the diary for updates. It helps.

The minigames include tangram puzzles, gear box puzzles, and the usual assortment of typical casual adventure game puzzles we've come to expect. But personally I enjoyed the one where you had to compare the pictures and click on the differences. For me the puzzles occurred not challenging at all and from time to time I needed just to try every possible position randomly without thinking and it worked out. For those of you who prefer brain storm to system which I call “several tries + skip” this game might seem a bore. But nevertheless the puzzles are cute thanks to the artwork.

Talking a long story short the adventure is promising, the locations are attractive and some of them might be totally unexplored for you before. Don't waste your chance to use a portal – the foreign countries and the ancient times are waiting for you already!