“Aha! I Found It!” Hidden Object Game can probably be categorised as a clear-cut example of ‘shovel-ware’ on the Wii Store but on its own merits is a fairly fun experience.
With the recent announcement from Nintendo of their plans to permanently close the Nintendo Wii Shop in January 2019 and that the last chance to buy any WiiWare or Virtual Console titles will be March 2018, I felt a sudden compulsion to dive into this area of the digital games market before it completely disappears. And so, I suddenly found myself with a litany of games to choose from: old classics on previous consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Mega Drive and NEO GEO consoles, as well as tonnes of indie games that were released on the WiiWare service and the plethora of shovel-ware which also appeared on that service.
And, in trying to be open to new experiences and not just re-purchasing some older games I owned previously, I delved into the WiiWare service and bought some cheap games.
Enter “Aha! I Found It!” HOG from Ateam Inc, which is basically a photo-hunt game using the Wii remote. The game has a very thin conceit surrounding it in that you play as a group of aliens that have landed on our planet and they have received missions from people to help them, such as finding all their new presents, gym equipment or ninja items to make them happy. Zany stuff.
The items that you are required to find are displayed at the bottom of the screen and they are hidden in amongst a pile of other random objects in a particular scene. Using the Wii remote you need to place your crosshair over the required item and select it and when you have found them all your time will be displayed which corresponds with how happy or sad you have made the client. From my experience, anything under four minutes seems to make them happy enough that you then unlock the next playable scene (of which there are ten in total).
The game has a pleasant cartoony look to it and the soothing music which plays over the game as you search for the items makes the experience relatively relaxing. However, some of the items are pretty difficult to make out due to the compressed nature of the Wii system graphics. On top of that the first level is one of the most difficult as the ninja client items needed are mostly Japanese words such as Kunai and Shuriken and so if you aren’t fluent in Japanese you won’t even know what you are looking for which can be pretty unfair for a western audience player.
But, it wasn’t an expensive game (£3.50) and I probably got about close to 4 hours worth of play time out of it and feel pretty satisfied with that. There is also the option to play with two, three or four players which I imagine makes the whole experience even more hectic.
All in all, a decent first foray into the WiiWare service and a relatively fun game for those players on a budget.