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Having recently tested your ability to act as a Park Ranger, @Casual Arts has switched its focus of attention to the festive period.  This change of focus has resulted in the arrival of Christmas Wonderland 14.  This review is based on the Collector's Edition of this Hidden Object title which comes bundled with various bonus items to add extra appeal.

This game supports the choice of three different levels of difficulty.  You can select from Casual, Challenge or Extreme modes which offer various speeds of charging the Hint feature, might give access to a tutorial and whether a timer facility will be implemented or not.  You can also adjust volume levels for music and sound effects plus view the game in full screen mode with a special cursor.

As with the Park Ranger duties, one of your first tasks in this Christmas Wonderland is to complete an illustrated snowy scene of the Springfield area.  Once completed you can settle down to a series of Hidden Object type scenes followed by a  randomly selected mini game puzzle.  Apart from the actual visual content of these scenes, the Hidden Object and mini game puzzles follow the @Casual Arts pattern of action.  Each scene location will contain at least one close-up area indicated by an outbreak of sparkles that could contain required items.

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With a rather busy scene making up the view of the current location, a panel running across the bottom of the display will detail the tasks that are required to complete the level.  Taking up a central position in the panel will be a text list of the items you are required to find in the scene.  Any item coloured blue in the list means that it involves a task will be required while entries coloured red means that it will be concealed in some manner. To the left of this area will be a snow globe displaying silhouettes of presents and a box for angels.  You will need to find the presents and angels somewhere in the relevant scene. 

Along with these items, each scene will contain a Frosty the Snowman figure which needs to be found.  Some locations will also contain a camera icon which can be used to grab a copy of the scene for displaying in a photo album feature.  Assisting in your search for various items are two Hint features situated on the right.  The standard Hint feature will pinpoint a single item within the scene while a Mega Hint feature will briefly display the position of required items.

Following completed Hidden Object scenes, you will be presented with a mini game puzzle.  This task could involve recreating a scene by swapping or rotating sections or even putting together a complete jigsaw using pieces that often need to be rotated in order to fit.  Other types of puzzle require you to match face-down cards, spot the differences between two similar scenes, complete a word square and solve a PIN by using picture clues.

As mentioned earlier, I have been looking at the Collector's Edition of this title.  Included with the main game, this version comes with a number of bonus items.  These extras include additional levels, wallpaper, music, a wide selection of puzzle games and an Extreme mode whereby you will need to find the 30 items integrated into every Hidden Object scene location.  You also get the opportunity to decorate a Christmas Wonderland Town and take part in a quest to find Big Foot.

This bundle of enjoyable game play can be downloaded from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $19.99.  This game is also available from Big Fish Games priced at £15.75.  Christmas Wonderland 14 CE requires a 1.0 GHz processor with 1024MB of RAM and 509MB of hard disk space running Windows 7 and later.

Christmas Wonderland 14 Collector's Edition | Big Fish Games

Christmas Wonderland 14 Collector's Edition | GameHouse