Regardless that there have been a few earlier entries within the ‘Hidden Cats’ collection, I’m a beginner to the feline hunter. However after spending a calming hour with Hidden Cats in Paris, I used to be off to search out extra cats in each London and New York. Is that as a result of it’s the very best sport I’ve performed this 12 months? No, removed from it. However for a Gamerscore-rich hour of chill, it ticks just about all of the bins.
Helped alongside by a stupidly low cost worth level, Hidden Cats in Paris does very a lot what it says on the tin. That tin is slapped with a easy assertion – scour the cityscape put earlier than you, clicking on any cat you could discover. Job completed.
However Hidden Cats in Paris does issues with aplomb, offering you with a single monochrome metropolis – on this case a tackle Paris with some beautiful Parisian vibes – as you zoom your digicam up, down, left, proper, out and in, searching down the lovable and cuddly cats within the course of. Every cat you discover will get colored upon your click on, filling out particular sections of the world as you go, infusing color and permitting you to get a deal with on areas nonetheless price specializing in. It’s a superb little mechanic, and the addition of color, in addition to some fundamental audio snippets – principally meows and a jazzy backing monitor – helps you hone in in your targets.
And while the overwhelming majority of the panorama of Paris is static, non-moving, there are components which shift alongside; most notably the street full with automobiles, and the sky, as scorching air balloons move by the Eiffel Tower. With Parisians going about their day by day enterprise, dressed to the nines in French clobber, the aura and ambiance are wealthy.
A few completely different sport modes enable you entry to Paris too. A Regular mode might be your place to begin, as you look to tick off 100 cats, utilising restricted hints if required. We’d be stunned for those who ever do have to fall again on the useful ‘enormous arrow’ that denotes hidden cats as you attain a conclusion, but it surely’s a pleasant choice to have. There’s additionally the slightly-more-tricky-but-still-easily-doable Superior mode. This randomly locations 150 cats, ditches off the hints till you handle to build up sufficient, and in addition duties you with ticking off particular characters.
This Superior mode additionally integrates eight famous person cats, every of which brings up a cute cat reality, with a real-world picture accompanying its uncovering. Once more, this can be a good addition that chucks in a contact of real-world allure and persona to the sport.
These particular cats are additionally the important thing to a collection of facet missions and eventualities within the type of six Hidden Kittens Bonus ranges. Going additional into French tradition and historical past, these are one-off scenes that take us to the Catacombs, the Patisserie, the Cabaret, Versailles, the Louvre and the Boulangerie; every with a theme to go well with. The distinction in every, no less than from the primary levels, are that the hidden cats are smaller, extra insignificant within the grand scheme of issues. And as solely the cats themselves are colored upon their uncovering, it makes either side hustle a extra strained affair – a lot in order that we discovered ourselves needing to sometimes depend on the hints as we went for a full 100% completion. There’s nonetheless enjoyable available in these bonus ranges, however on a private stage we’d have most well-liked just a few further full Parisian scenes as a substitute.
You see, for all of the stress-free notions that come to the fore with Hidden Cats in Paris, and for the stupidly low worth that’s requested for entry, it’s a sport that might be over nicely inside an hour, 1000 Gamerscore within the bag, ranges colored in with zest. There’s not even the choice to return and reply a stage, as when you’ve discovered all these little feline mates, they keep put, able to pounce. We guess you can go in and delete your save…
It implies that while Hidden Cats in Paris is a brilliant tempting proposition, it does fall a teeny bit quick in what it may nicely be. A couple of extra principal ranges could be most well-liked, probably changing among the Bonus levels. However then it’s exhausting to be powerful on a sport that’s extremely inexpensive, particularly one that’s oh-so vibrant.
