Here, have my full impressions for Melissa K. and the Heart of Gold
The voices and dialogue: The game is fully voiced. Melissa K.'s voice actor does a passable job. The others, not so much. The voice actor for Dr. Julian has a cadence that would make William Shatner blush. He has these ridiculous pauses as if he was asked to record his dialogue three words at a time, only lengthen the last word each time to make it sound smoother.
The story: You play "Melissa K." (as with many hidden object games, you don't get a full name for the protagonist. Even her office door reads "Melissa K. Ph.D.",) an uppity British chick in a fedora in the year 1947. You receive a letter signed simply "The Queen" - were the developers this ignorant or were they implying King George VI was gay? You decide! - and it's off to Thailand (which was TOTALLY not Siam at the time. Don't you dare even suggest it!) to tutor "the young monk," except he goes missing. Your new job is to find the young monk. You're "assisted" by Deveij, your guide, who does little more than hand you documents from time to time, and your old professor, "Dr. Julian" who, once again, has no last name.
In the bonus chapter, you get to play Dr. Julian as he performs such tasks as "Look for Melissa" and "Project the signs of the Chinese zodiac in the sky in order to seduce Melissa." I seriously wish I was making that part up. But it does come with hilarious images of 40s-style advertisements proclaiming things like "What woman can resist the signs of the zodiac?" So at least there's SOME self-awareness...I may be giving the developers too much credit, but I'll assume it was meant to be played as absurd.
The story is pretty bad, mostly poorly acted, unquestionably poorly researched, and borders on racism but doesn't quite get there. So why can I still give it all a pass? Read on!
The puzzles and hidden object screens: Some of you may be out there thinking, "Bah, hidden object games are for casual scrubs, they're too easy." And, you know, for the large majority of them you'd be right. In most hidden object games, even if you play on expert, you can still get through it relatively easily. Playing this game on expert will kick your ass. The puzzles have varying difficulties and in some cases you finish one level of a puzzle and think "Whew! That was decently challenging!" only to discover there's an even harder level right after. The hidden object puzzles also get harder, in that on easier levels you may only be asked to match pictures as opposed to words. You'll be asked to click around the regular environment for items, and even that's not too easy - some are hidden in plain sight really close to the foreground, so what you think is a ledge might actually be a rock you can pick up. If ever there was a hidden object game that bordered on hardcore, this is it.
I usually let slide some puzzles as "adventure game logic" but I only found two that stretch even that. One is that you had to make a green banana look yellow in order for a monkey to take it (monkeys don't work that way!) and another is that you receive a strength bracelet that allows you to break open a gate of iron bars, but in the very next scene, "this door is boarded up with wood, I can't break it." Bitch, iron is stronger than wood! But still, this game had really satisfying puzzles - that you can even replay after you're done the main game, with bonus puzzles besides. Beat your best time and/or accuracy, get those extra bonus collectibles you missed, etc.
The graphics: The environments are surprisingly good. The areas take up more than the full screen, so you have to scroll around, at which point you notice the game uses parallax scrolling to great effect. At first I thought the areas were 3D, and I'd be in for something like Dual Destinies-level object seeking. Turns out it wasn't that good, but it's still a step up from most hidden object games. The character models can sometimes appear creepy, but they look better in the cutscenes.
The length: Keep in mind I didn't use hints, but...ELEVEN HOURS. That's including the bonus chapter and the bonus puzzles. If I used hints, I could probably shave several hours off that time, but it's still a good long time and close to full-length point-and-click adventure.
The verdict: This game will tax even the most savvy of hidden object fans. If you don't use hints you could be in for a hell of a time. In that regard, I liked it, and you probably will too. If you're not looking for a decent challenge and you just want to enjoy a good story, you might be able to enjoy this ironically, but don't even count on that.
Long live the Queen, or King, as the case may be!
