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The combination of travel excursion outings based around a basis of Hidden Object game play continues to make regular appearances on release schedules.  The latest such offering to come my way is Around the World - Travel to Brazil.  Developed by AVI Games, this offering is available in Collector's Edition format which bundles extra items to enhance the gaming experience of the player.

While its title might have changed, this Around the World offering is a close relation of the AVI Games Big Adventure family of products.  The game, with the usual array of adjustable options, sets you the task of following a pre-set path of various locations where you will be faced by a colourful scene featuring numerous items.  Arranged across the bottom of the scene will be a panel showing the tasks that you need to complete.

Occupying a central position in the panel will be a list of the items you need to locate.  This list could be in text format, shown as actual images or rebus images, patterns and silhouettes.  When text is used for the list, entries coloured red will indicate the item will be concealed in some way while entries coloured green indicates that a task will need to be performed in order to find the item. 

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To the left of the list of required items, certain extra items could be displayed.  These additional items could consist of items shown as an image which are displayed one at a time or as a number of line drawings.  As well as these extra images and drawing clues, in whatever format, each scene could feature hidden areas whose presence is highlighted by a outbreak of sparkles plus a friendly raccoon.  To assist in the finding of the various items, the panel has a rechargeable Hint feature plus a zoom feature that turns the mouse cursor into a magnifying glass for a closer look as it travels over the scene.

In some cases your work at a particular location will be spread over two stages.  This usually occurs when a straight-forward text search is combined with a search list that is made up of silhouettes, images, rebus images and the need to replace items within the current scene.

During your exploration of Brazil and all it has to offer, your searching will cover a range of topics.  Your initial points of interest will deal with and concentrate on boats and trains.  Next you find yourself moving on to tackling parks and gardens.  Further progress will move on to the subject matter such as caves and jungles before you can admire waterfalls and explore buildings.

As well as tackling the Hidden Object aspect of finding items hidden within locations in Brazil, you will be presented with an occasional mini game puzzle that will need solving.  The puzzles are varied in both style and difficulty.  You could be required to arrange tiles to match borders, clear tiles from a grid by matching them, search for the numbers 1 to 70 in a clutter, recreate scenes in different ways, spot the differences between two similar scenes and duplicate a ballet scene amongst other tasks.  Fortunately a skip option is available if the puzzle proves too difficult.

As mentioned earlier, this title is available in CE format.  Bundled with the main game are bonus levels.  There are also even more puzzles, extra games, wallpaper, the ability to check on souvenirs purchased during the game and a jukebox facility to replay the game's music.

With its mixture of Hidden Object and puzzle game content, this title should provide many hours of worthwhile game play.  I downloaded my copy of the game from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $19.99.  The game is also available from Big Fish Games priced at £15.82.  The game requires a 1.0 GHz processor with 512MB of RAM running Windows 7 and later.

Around The World - Travel to Brazil Collector's Edition | Big Fish Games

Around The World - Travel to Brazil Collector's Edition | GameHouse