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Combining themes with a range of puzzle types, AVI Games has developed the second version of its title of Lots of Things offering.  By creating profiles, different people can play the game with adjustable volume levels for music and sound effects.  The game can be viewed in either full screen or windows mode with a custom cursor and a tutorial feature that can be turned off if not required.

The game presents its range of puzzle types into a variety of themes.  These themes cover topics entitled Airport, Africa, Alpinism, Holiday, Sea, Animals, Trains, Books, Rangers, Fashion, Painting and Pets amongst others.  While the supplied themes are presented three-at-a-time, you are restricted in the order in which they must be tackled to make the necessary progress.  You can, at any time, step back through the list but are blocked from moving forward until the current theme has been completed.

Each theme contains four puzzles made up of three random choices and a Hidden Object puzzle offering that is consistent throughout the game.  Based on a location that is typical of the current theme, the Hidden Object puzzle will require you to find items listed in text or image format.  While most of the items will appear in the main scene, a few items could be concealed within an area available via an outbreak of sparkles.  Within each scene will be a raccoon that will bring a reward once located.

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Completing each theme's set of puzzles will be three further puzzles.  They are presented as random items.  Unlike the theme offerings, the four puzzles can be tackled in any order.  However they will all need to be completed or, at worst, cut short by the use of a Skip option.  When necessary brief instruction will be provided as to what actions will be required to complete a puzzle.  I counted at least 14 different types of puzzles being used in this role at different times.  Some puzzle types tend to appear more regularly than others and I was quite thankful that I only needed to restore computer scene featuring curved pieces just once.

Among the more regular appearing puzzles was the type that involved sorting a clutter of objects into different baskets that had been assigned to specific types of items.  In other instances, pictures might need to be restored by arranging and sliding strips of the image, swapping diamond sections to recreate a scene, replacing cut out sections and generally adjusting part of a scene.  More conventional puzzle type that were featured include Spotting the Difference between similar scenes or finding identical pairs.  You could also be asked to arrange items in columns and rows so that no duplicates appear or direct a Ranger through a park maze.

This title is available in Collector's Edition format.  With this format you will be able to gain access to a number of bonus items.  Once you have progress through the main game section, the various bonus items will become available.  You will be able to play bonus levels, extra puzzles, make use of wallpaper scenes and collect souvenirs.

It was noticeable than some of the scenes, especially those of the Hidden Object genre, were somewhat similar to scenes featured in other AVI Games offerings.  I also felt the menu system forming part of this title was a little clunky and could have been more user friendly.

This title can be downloaded from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $19.99.  The game is also available from Big Fish Games priced at £16.11.  The game requires a 1.6 GHz processor with 1024MB of RAM and 608MB of hard disk space running Windows 7 and later.

Lots of Things 2 - Travel and Search Collector's Edition | Big Fish Games

Lots Of Things 2 - Collector's Edition | GameHouse