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Mystery Trackers - Reflections of the Past is a Hidden Object Adventure game from Elephant Games.  I have been looking at the Collector's Edition version of the product which comes bundled with a number of bonus items to enhance the playing experience.  As usual the bonus items consist of a mixture of available immediately or when sufficient progress has been made.

Giving you the choice of Casual, Advanced, Hardcore or Custom difficulty levels, you are cast in the role of Amber.  In this role you are  enjoying a well deserved retirement after stopping the activity of various evil criminals during her career.  However for reason for which you are currently unaware, you are ordered to return to duty and action.

A tutorial type session will lead you through the various tools available with the game.  You can move around scenes, carry out tasks and call for help available from your pet dog, Elf, who sits in the inventory until called upon to carry out tasks.

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Meanwhile an attack is made on the Mystery Trackers' Headquarters resulting in the death of the Order's commander and your boss.  This leaves you in charge and responsible for discovering who is responsible for the attack as the game really starts in earnest.  A series of easily recognisable clues scattered amidst the destruction of the Agency's resources, quickly reveal that your spell of a short retirement has certainly dulled your investigation capabilities as you quickly fall into a trap.  At least the trap confirms that you are dealing with a group of four criminals whom you have previously defeated during previous investigations.

You will then have to deal with the loss of Elf as the criminals plan to use the dog as part of a scientific experiment to produce amazing hideous monsters that have amazing powers.  At least one of the criminals had been using an early example of the results of this experimenting to inject herself.  Making use of any available resources you will need to rescue Elf from any forthcoming fate and defeat the criminals in various ways. 

You will need to explore several rooms while avoiding the minimum interference from your captives.  At times, I must admit, the criminals do not appear all that bright and seem more intent on aiding rather than hindering your escape.  Interspersed with other types of tasks, such as searching for pieces of a puzzle and small Elf figures scattered throughout the game, will be the usual collection of mini game puzzles and Hidden Object scenes. 

The game will present you with a  variety of mini game puzzles that feature different skills.  You might need to rearrange the pictures of the criminals split into sections or rotate and fit shapes into a silhouette to form an animal.  With some assistance from Elf, once rescued, you might have to shoot an invisible target or navigate a maze while collecting items encountered on the route.

Hidden Object game play, identified by an outbreak of sparkles, uses a variety of ways to list the required items.  Often featured with the scene will be the use of a text lists.  However at other times, the list will appear as silhouettes or as parts of the current scene.  In some cases you will need to find the required items and then replace them in their correct position.  Completed tasks will bring the reward of a required item.

Generally the game was challenging but occasionally a little confusing.  You can download Mystery Trackers - Reflections of the Past from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $19.99.  It is also available from Big Fish Games priced at £11.28.  The game requires a 2.5 GHz processor with 1024MB of RAM and 654MB of hard disk space running Windows 7 and later.

Mystery Trackers - Reflections of the Past Collector's Edition | Big Fish

Mystery Trackers - Reflections of the Past Collector's Edition | GameHouse