Title: Letters From Nowhere
Price: Free
System(s): *iPhone, iPad
Release Date: April 19, 2012
Publisher (Developer): G5 entertainment (Big Fish Games)
ESRB Rating: “Everyone”
Pros: A fun hidden item game. Easy to play with and intriguing storyline that keeps you guessing.
Cons: Not much in the way of story and few adventure elements except  intermittent mini games.
Overall Score: One Thumb Up, One Thumb Sideways; 89 out of 100; B+; * * * ½ out of 5.

Aubry’s husband Patrick has disappeared without a trace. Your only leads are some mysterious letters that seem to have been sent by a ghost. Using only a few clues you find in the letters, you search for your missing partner before something terrible happens to him.

At times you will feel you are being sent on a wild goose chase but each location holds a key to the overall mystery.  It’s a game that will entice, confuse and entertain you and with only the use of hidden item puzzles.

Hidden Letters, Hidden Messages

Letters From Nowhere is a hidden object game (HOG) that takes your character on a wild goose chase to multiple settings. Every so often you find a letter from someone who is “no longer of this world” and is trying to help. As you dig deeper you find out that that Patrick’s disappearance may be linked to some tribal ritual.

The game main mechanic is going to different locations and playing hidden item games. You have to look through  a lot of junk in each location where a couple of the items will be linked to Pat’s disappearance or a letter that will tell you what to do next. You occasionally play a mini game – such as putting a puzzle together or spinning tiles to make a picture – to review an item.

The game is divided into chapters and with different location that you sometimes visit more than once. At each location you learn more about how the location is special to your quest and more about what has happened to Patrick.

You earn points for each item you locate per chapter and earn bonuses for finding items quickly or by finding special items you purchase by cashing in points. You can also purchase additional, hard-to-0find items to that are worth lots of points or helpful items like a paint palette that turns all the items listed into pictures, making them  easier to find. There is also a hint magnifying glass that shows you where a couple items are on the screen.

Ghost Mailmen?

Letters from Nowhere is pure hidden item searching. There are a couple mini games you can play to find certain items but, other than that, it’s all about looking for items. This is not necessarily a bad thing if you enjoy HOGs but, if you are looking for something with more adventure or conversations, you’ll be disappointed.

There are many locations in the game but you often have to return to the same locations multiple times to look for items. The items you are looking for will be different but it would be nice to see a change of scenery. The developers did try to spruce up the mundane item searching elements by having you combine two items together before you can claim it, like putting glasses into a case to make it a “glasses case.” The mini games and purchasable power ups help as well.

If you start randomly clicking on items you will be penalized a lot of points, so don’t start guessing too much. You also lose a nice chunk of points every time you use a hint to find an item (but you make most of it back when you collect the item).

At times I felt like I was losing the story elements and just playing a hidden item game but then the story would pick back up. Let’s just say you should play this game for puzzle elements and not really for its story. The plots does tart to become intriguing, especially when you start to find out the truth about Pat’s disappearance, but there are no big cut scenes or dialogue except for the reading of the letters.

Basic and Fun

Letters From Nowhere is decent enough if you are just looking for a fun hidden object game. It’s easy to play which makes it good for killing time in short spurts, plus the concept is simple enough that you can just put it down and pick it up without getting lost. It’s not big on story but it makes up for it with a good point system, extra stuff to buy and a couple unique collecting elements.

Site [G5E]

You Don’t Know Jack on Facebook has the same great production quality as the iOS and Xbox Live versions that came before it. The difference is that the Facebook version pits you against your friends even if they aren’t playing at the same time as you. The game takes your friend’s actions and play them in conjunction to your live game. It makes you think you’re racing against your friends in real time, but you’re really not.

One of the only downsides to You Don’t Know Jack is the microtransations that will usually prevent you from playing more than a one game a day. You have to pay with real money for that privilege.

Via [Facebook]

Storyteller will allegedly be featured on the PS3, but it may also come to the Vita as well. If the books are indeed interactive, I can’t imagine why the Vita wouldn’t be included.

The only detail regarding the books is that there will be a particular focus on children’s stories.

Sony experimented with something similar with its digital comics store which opened in 2009. Sony stopped updating the comics section of the PlayStation Store in July of 2011.

It’s hard to not see this move as being somewhat redundant since Sony’s line of Readers and the Reader Store already fills its ebook space. They may not be all that interactive, but it doesn’t seem like it would take much to add an interactive section to the store.

Via [MCV]

If you live in the following countries, you’ll be able to check out Xbox Live Gold video content and partake in multiplayer games:

• United States
• Japan
• Mexico
• Brazil
• Colombia
• Chile

Once the free weekend is over, E3 will be staring us in the face. It’s there that Microsoft will reveal some new Xbox Live features that will probably be tied to Gold memberships. Should anything convince you to pay for the service, but you don’t want to pay for a full year, keep watching the Xbox Live dashboard for membership discounts. Sometimes you can get a full month of Gold for $1.

Via [Major Nelson]

Since the Vita has the touch screen and pad and much better networking capabilities, it means New Little King’s Story will have a lt of features the original didn’t. New control schemes, for example, are the most obvious. You’ll also be able to acquire DLC to expand your story. Most importantly, cooperative multiplayer will be included to kingdom reclaiming simpler.

Read [PlayStation Universe]

VentureBeat uncovered this lawsuit earlier today. The Kickstarter game in question is called Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure. It’s being promoted by Wisecrack Games’ Ken Wegrzyn, who at one point worked with Al Lowe on Sam Suede a long time ago. According to Sam Suede‘s Kickstarter video, Wegrzyn says Al Lowe promised to work on the game if enough money was raised without sacrificing creative control of the project. Wegrzyn managed to raise the money, but the development costs became too expensive once the team realized Sam Suede needed to be redone for modern consoles. That’s where this Kickstarter campaign comes into play.

Upon hearing about the campaign, Replay Games claimed Al Lowe is not involved with the modern version of Sam Suede. Replay Games feels Al Lowe shouldn’t be mentioned as part of the project, and his images should be taken down from the Sam Suede Kickstarter page. Replay also wants any mention of Leisure Suit Larry to be removed from the page.

“I think the blatant misuse of the Leisure Suit Larry name and copyrighted material shows clear disregard for copyright law. To piggyback on someone else’s success is not only rude but also illegal. Those who continue with this will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law. We are suing today.” – Paul Trowe, President of Replay Games

The Kickstarter page for Sam Suede does suggest Al Lowe is a part of the project. Here is a quote straight from the page.

“Al Lowe and Ken Wegrzyn have laid the blueprint for the comedy/adventure by completing the game design and prototyping. Along with Steve Ince, they are now ready to hit the ground running and put the COMEDY back into adventure games, just like you remember from the Sierra On-Line decade or for you to encounter for the very first time!”

Al Lowe is also supposedly a part of a reward for pledging $10,000 or more.

AL LOWE EDITION: Exclusive Dinner and a Show hosted by Al Lowe & Ken Wegrzyn: You’ll attend a jazz performance to see Al Lowe perform and play saxophone with his local jazz band MOJO and then whisked away to dinner with Al and Ken. Includes the $250 tier reward. (Travel to Seattle not included.)

Wiscrack Games doesn’t believe it’s misrepresenting Al Lowe’s involvement with Sam Suede. It also disputes the accusation that’s violating the trademark for Leisure Suit Larry.

Site [Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure Kickstarter] Via [VentureBeat]

The likely acquisition targets are either Gaikai or OnLive. These are the two most prominent cloud gaming companies in the business right now, but their business practices are totally different.

OnLive directly sells cloud versions of multiplatform games either individually, or with bundled with several games in their PlayPack. OnLive also dabbles in non-gaming ventures such as OnLive Desktop which provides cloud access to Microsoft Office software.

Gaikai simply serves cloud-based demos for games across various websites. The idea behind this is to get potential customers to click through to purchase full versions of games from Gaikai’s partners. Gaikai is also more into improving the technology behind cloud gaming by partnering with NVIDIA to promote its GeForce Grid technology.

If Sony were to purchase one of these companies, my money would be on Gaikai. Gaikai seems like it could be integrated into Sony more easily than OnLive, and it already has connections to very popular brands. The effects of this potential partnership will resonate throughout all of Sony’s connected devices if this report proves to be accurate. We’ll see at E3.

Via [The Wall Street Journal] Also Read [MCV]

Insomniac Games revealed its next title on the PlayStation Blog earlier today. Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault is going to be released sometime this year in the PlayStation Store. Insomniac is describing this game as “fun-sized”, which is most likely why it isn’t seeing a full-scale retail release.

There aren’t a lot of details to share about Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault, but Insomniac is promoting the game’s classic mechanics. Insomniac is bringing back fan-requested features such as the series’ original camera angle, weapons and controls. These requests probably result from Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One since it played very differently from other games in the series.

We can also expect to see some kind of multiplayer component built into Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault as well.

Via [PlayStation Blog]

Bethesdas released a trailer to hype up this release, which you can see here.

At the moment, both an exact release window and price haven’t been announced. We just know it’ll be out in 2012. Let’s hope it shows up at Bethesda’s E3 2012 booth next week!

Read [Bethesda Blog]

There are a few things you should expect, however. All Shin Megami Tensei games have demons that the player uses. So expect negotiations and monster recruiting. Also, all of the main games tend to have multiple endings based on lawful, chaotic or neutral decisions made throughout the story. They all are also RPGs. So expect those three games.

I’d also suggest expecting a North American release eventually. Atlus is really good about releasing the Shin Megami Tensei games outside Japan and since we got both Shin Megami Tensei III (PS2) and the spin-off Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (DS), we should see this too. Just don’t expect to see it at E3 2012.

Read [Famitsu (Japanese)] Site [Shin Megami Tensei IV (Japanese)]