When
we first met our intrepid heroine, she was traveling the world in
search of the legendary Hidden Roses of Athena. Pursued by the evil
Ravena Stryker, she had to use her keen eye, resourceful compatriots
and an assortment of tools to find her way out of trouble and to recover
the roses for the Museum of Secrets Lost. Apparently undeterred by
this dangerous mission, Samantha Swift returns again in a new casual
adventure that has her in search of Alexander Great’s Scroll
of Wealth. Unfortunately, there is a mysterious brotherhood who wants
it, too – and they also want King Midas’ Golden Touch.
Now Samantha has to use the scroll to stop this mystical power from
becoming an agent of evil, while the trail of her missing father continues
to heat up….

Gamers who played the first
Samantha Swift adventure will recognize the interface and gameplay
format right away, and newcomers to the series will have no trouble
diving headfirst into the mystery. The series plays like a search-and-find
casual game, but with clever twists. As Samantha is employed by the
Museum of Secrets Lost, she must obtain relics for the museum during
the course of her adventure. In each new location you visit, there
is a list of items for you to find. Some of them are priceless objects,
some are tools, and some are just random objects hidden in the scene
– though all, thankfully, are at least appropriate; there are
no anachronisms (i.e. a cell phone in an ancient city) or anything
to detract from the mood. If you have trouble finding something, there
is a PDA that can help you out. Just click on the item in question,
and the PDA will show you a silhouette of what the item looks like.
If you then move your cursor around the scene, the silhouette will
grow redder as you get closer to finding the object. If you are still
having trouble, you can use the thunderbolts you collect along the
way to ‘zap’ the item and give away its hiding place.

In
this particular installment, there are usually two lists of items
to look for, as opposed to just one list in the previous game. Items
in blue have to be found using tools. The cursor turns blue with a
gear icon in a place where a tool is needed. For example, you may
have to use a shovel on a patch of dirt in order to dig up a new artifact.
There is always an artifact at the end of each level that has to be
revealed using a tool. These challenges get more difficult as the
game progresses and often require some creative problem-solving. My
only issue with this part of the game is that there are no visual
clues to help you figure out where a tool is needed, so you have to
wave your cursor around wildly to find the right spot. Even then,
some of these situations are a little unintuitive, and you have to
try every tool at your disposal before finding the right one.

This time around, there
are also more mini-games to play in order to progress to new levels.
Especially difficult (and different) in this game was an Alexandrian
knot puzzle. Again, these games are nice additions to the tired hunt-and-find
formula and actually get you thinking outside of the box. Casual gamers
may be somewhat daunted by these puzzles, which are not as easy as
the simple object-hunting scenes, but they are solvable after some
critical thinking and trial and error. The animations and cut-scenes,
I have to say, are pretty cool, certainly a treat for a casual game,
and do an admirable job of immersing you in the mystique of the adventure,
along with the ominous music that plays unobtrusively in the background.

There
are many levels, many things to find, and many puzzles to solve in
this game, so while the price of $19.99 may at first appear steep
for a casual game, I can assure you that it is actually appropriate
given that this is a game that, if played at intervals (as it should
be, I think), will be well worth every dollar, as it is even longer
and more involved than its predecessor, with a layered plot worthy
of an adventure game itself, never mind a casual game. MumboJumbo
Games has delivered another winning Samantha Swift adventure. If you
are a fan of casual games and have not tried this series, I highly
recommend starting now.

System Requirements:

• OS: Windows XP/Vista
• CPU: 1.0 Ghz
• RAM: 256 MB
• DirectX: 8.1
• Hard Drive space: 259
  MB