Back when I was a wee little kiddie, I used to subscribe to a magazine called Highlights For Children. I'm pretty sure this magazine is still published, so you might even have a clue about what I'm about to say, but I'm pretty sure everyone who ever read the magazine would agree that the best page was the Find The Hidden Picture page, in which you had to search a picture for hidden pictures within it. I haven't seen a Highlights for many years now, but I have gone and found the next best thing: Mystery Case Files: Huntsville.

I admit that this discovery was not necessarily my own. I have had a mini love affair with Big Fish Games ever since I found out that they offer most of their games for us Mac folks as well as the lucky PC crowd, so I constantly search around there when I need a game to occupy me for a few hours. My father was actually the first one to talk about Mystery Case Files, and after hearing about it for a few days from him, and seeing it every time I surfed around Big Fish Games, I decided to give it a whirl.

Unlike those Find the Hidden Picture games of yore, Mystery Case Files: Huntsville ups the challenge quite a bit by telling you what items you are looking for, but not showing you a picture so you know what you are looking for. The game is based around the premise that you, the player, are a really skilled detective, and that you need to search for clues in order to solve the various crimes committed in and around Huntsville. The clues are items hidden within the various locations in town, and at each place, you get a list of things to search for, a time limit, and go to it.

Some of the items are pretty tricky. For example, one level asked me to find a spade. I spent the entire level searching for a gardening spade, only to find out that they were actually looking for a spade on a playing card. Additionally, some of the items are hidden in very clever ways. Items may be lying around on shelves, or they may be part of the wallpaper or a picture hanging in the room. Everything is fair game here, and the earlier you know that, the better.

The game is accompanied by music, but thankfully, it's not distracting or annoying. There is a beefy mystery story that goes along with what you're doing, in case you require some background, and each level ends with a puzzle in which you must organize the pieces to create a picture. These pictures are tricky, but each picture, once solved, shows you the criminal behind the crime, so you must solve these in order to move on. The graphics in the game are very basic, very clear, and very well-done, which is absolutely necessary in a game like this.

The game does have some faults, including some ambiguous items to find. For example, on one level, I was asked to find two brushes. The game didn't specify whether these were supposed to be hair brushes, but it should have, because that's what I looked for. Unfortunately, they were looking for a vegetable-scrubbing brush and a brush that looks like it should be used on a horse, both of which were the farthest things from my mind. In addition, you are required to find each group of items in a specified amount of time, which seems to range from 16 minutes to 8 minutes. This keeps up the level of difficulty for those gamers who play at home, but does not work so well for those who want to play during work hours. Thankfully, the positives far outweighed the negatives on this game, and I had a blast playing through the levels and finding all of the items. The game kept me challenged, but very satisfied once I found all of the necessary items.

Mystery Case Files: Huntsville is available for PC and Mac users. There is a free 60-minute trial so you can give the game a test drive. The game is available for purchase for $19.99 at Big Fish Games.

Helpful Hint: It is very tempting to click like mad across the screen while searching for items, but be careful! If you click too many times on wrong items, you will receive a time penalty, and your time limit will be shortened.

There are three helpful hints to assist you during levels. These will highlight the area on screen where one of your items is hiding. Try to use these hints sparingly, because if you're too click-happy, you'll run out of hints and end up stuck with no clues at all.

If you do run out of time before you've found all of the items, the game will reset you to the beginning of the level with new clues. As you play through the levels, try to remember where items are hiding- you may be asked to find some of the same ones when you replay a level or in subsequent levels.