Yard Sales Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville
Price: 500 Wii Points
Another entry into the ever-popular casual gaming category, Yard Sales Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville is a port of the PC and DS game of the same name. Hidden object games are big on the downloadable games market, with other entries on Wiiware including Aha! I Found It! Hidden Object Game, The Mystery of Whiterock Castle and Adventure on LOST ISLAND – Hidden Object Game. While not revolutionary in nature, they are simple to pick up and play.
Yard Sales Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville sets you up as a newcomer to the neighbourhood who is entering a contest for the best decorated home. Your task is to visit several yard sales to find objects for your house. This is where the ‘find the object’ part comes into play; you’re given a picture of the yard and several items to find within the illustrated environments. Sadly, this is where Yard Sales falls down in its delivery. The environments are tiny and blurry, making it difficult to spot the objects. The object names are also obscure, leading to a lot of guessing for what you are looking for in the first place (how many times would you encounter a ‘wind turbine’ in everyday life?).
While this makes up the bulk of the game, this isn’t the end of the Yard Sales experience. After finding furniture for your home, you several mini-games are on offer to decorate your house, which include doing spray painting, sanding, cutting, sewing motions with your Wii Remote. Unfortunately, these repetitive actions aren’t enough to redeem the game in any way.
The Final Verdict
As simple and straightforward as the genre may be, Yard Sales fails to deliver in many ways, giving us a blurry and confusing experience for what may have been an enjoyable game. The mini-games that came with decorating were a welcome change, but are hardly enough to make you want to play it. Look elsewhere for your hidden object needs, and perhaps not on the Wii unless you have a huge TV.
By Jeann Wong
We say: STAY AWAY