Game Classification

Steve is summoned by the museum director to investigate the disappearance of the Mona Medusa, a painting masterpiece. He must search all the locations for clues, and follow the trail left by the thief to find the identity and arrest the guilty party.

Steve the Sheriff 2: The Case of the Missing Thing is a hidden object game with adventure elements. Like in its predecessor, the main characters are anthropomorphic cartoon animals within an underwater setting. Steve is a red crab and the local sheriff, and he must collect all the evidence left by the criminals on several places around the town. The objects are listed on a notebook at the left side of the screen, and all its entries must be found to complete each scene. A magnifying glass at the bottom left shows the silhouette of the list items.

Each scene has several interactive hotspots, marked by a jet-stream of floating bubbles. The context-sensitive cursor displays the relevant icon when hovering over one of them, changing to gears when over a puzzle and a magnifying glass when over a zoom view. A portrait of Steve surrounded by thought bubbles appears when clicking on the puzzle spots. The bubbles show pictures of the necessary items to solve a puzzle. The player has to drag and drop them from the scenery to the bubbles to perform the action described at the bottom of the notebook. For example, using a broom and pail to clean a pile of garbage. Each location has a few special hotspots that bring up an interactive window when clicked, showing a close-up view of the scenery that often contains some of the required objects.

Some puzzles appear on a separate screen, where some mechanism has to be manipulated directly to assemble jigsaw puzzles, or perform other tasks related to the plot. In a recurring mini-game, the screen is split in two similar images, and the player has to click on the differences between them. The hint button is a cigar sitting below the list, that highlights the position of one of the required objects when clicked. It takes some time to recharge after use. Each location has one hidden cigar that is added to a humidor when found, and moving the cursor over the collection shows trivia facts about the game on the lid. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : Macintosh - PC (Windows)

Links

• http://www.mobygames.com/game/steve-the-sheriff-2-the-case-of-the [...]