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Continuing with its popular topic, @Casual Arts has released the next offering in its Vacation Adventure Park Ranger series.  Now up to version 16, this Hidden Object and puzzle solving title takes you along National Park Trails to see what you can find as you develop your outdoor skills within the Pinecreek Hills area.

Prior to signing for this training exercise, you can create profiles so that different family members can have their progress recorded along with adjustments to volume levels for sound effects and background music.  The relevant action can be viewed in full screen mode with a special mouse cursor delivering feedback regards possible options.  The game has a choice of three different levels of difficulty as you select from Casual, Challenge or Extreme settings while opting for a choice of male or female headshot as your on-screen character.

Following the pattern established in earlier titles in this series as a Park Ranger you will be expected to make your way along a set path of operation.  As you make progress you will be expected to carry out certain duties.  Your path will cover a variety of locations portraying features found within the Pinecreek Hills area.  Each of these stop-over locations encountered on your route will contain a Hidden Object scene and a mini game puzzle to test your skill abilities.

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The depicted Hidden Object scene will contain numerous items that are scattered around and the scene will be overlaid by a panel holding information of the tasks that need to be completed plus a couple of useful tools.  Centrally positioned in the panel will be a text list of the items you need to find.  Any item in the list coloured blue will involve a task that needs to be carried out and those items coloured red will be concealed somehow within the scene. 

Along with the text list you will be shown a number of silhouettes representing wildlife that will need to be found within the scene.  Each scene will also contain a number of trash items that, as a caring Park Ranger, you really need to collect.  Assisting you in some of these tasks are Hint and Mega Hint tools to help pinpoint items.  But these aids offer no help with finding the wildlife items and trash.

Certain parts of the Hidden Object scenes will contain areas indicated by an outbreak of sparkles.  These sparkles indicate when areas are available where you might find one of the required items.  Some scenes will also contain a camera icon.  Once found, by clicking on a camera icon, the scene will be captured and this will be added to a photo album feature.  You will be allowed to view these scene later during the game.

After completing the Hidden Object aspect for the current location, you will be faced by a mini game puzzle.  With an extensive pool from which to make its selection, the game could present you with a Jigsaw, Rotate picture, Flipsaw, Spot the Difference, Concentration, Pairs, Word Square, Counter Rotate, Slider Square, Phone Number equation code, Tracker or Moon Phased Planets offerings.  Having completed the route and the various mini games, including a hunt for Big Foot, you will gain access to some bonus levels and an Extreme mode whereby you will need to find all the items in every location.

I downloaded my copy of this game from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $19.99.  It is also available from Big Fish Games priced at £15.39.  The game requires a 1.0 GHz with 1024MB of RAM and 563MB of hard disk space running Windows 7 and later.

Vacation Adventures - Park Ranger 16 Collector's Edition | Big Fish Games

Vacation Adventures - Park Ranger 16 Collector's Edition | GameHouse