Hi Reeker. When you updated your graphics card did you use the drivers supplied with the card? If so I would try downloading the latest from the cards manufacturers home page. I presume your card is either an NVidia or ATI card. The latest drivers are readily available free from their sites.
Some people have previously reported problems with graphics due to thei resolution set up. If you have your graphics settings on a high resolution, try turning them down and see if that helps.
My version worked okay, so I can't suggest any other solutions at this time.
I can say that I hd a couple of crashes when playing the game and after reading online reviews others have experiences problems with this game.
Regards
Stephen
p.s.
I'm still unable to post my full review for some reason so I thought I'd try posting the main bulk of it here:
Mysterious City: Golden Prague
For those on dial up today’s game is going to be considered quite a large download as far as arcade games go, at 38.9Mb; however after playing the demo for the full hour then another demo for another hour I’d say it’s well worth the trouble. I do believe there hasn’t been a hidden objects game given away as yet on the game giveaway project, so this is a first. Once installed the game takes up 43.6Mb of disc space.
Quote:
Enter the world of Mysterious City: Golden Prague as your peaceful morning is interrupted by a frantic knock on your door. Your beloved professor has gone missing from the museum where he was last seen. With only a week until the magnificent golden clock is scheduled to open, it's up to you to explore the beautiful and historic city of Prague; from the intriguing museums and mysterious castles to its mysterious underbelly. Discover the clues the professor left, and piece together what happened before it's too late!
Ref: http://www.iwin.com/games/the-mysterious-city-golden-prague accessed 28th August 2008
em>System Requirements:
• Windows XP/Vista
• Processor: Pentium 750 MHz
• 256 MB RAM
• Free hard drive space: 40 MB
Other Reviews:
http://www.iwin.com/dispatchUserReviews.do?method=allReviewsForGame&title=&gameId=1736952325862529499
http://www.gamezebo.com/games/mysterious-city-golden-prague/review
http://www.gamezebo.com/games/mysterious-city-golden-prague/user-reviews
Images:
All on one page:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Mysterious%20City%20Golden%20Prague/?start=all
As a slideshow:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Mysterious%20City%20Golden%20Prague/?albumview=slideshow
The Game:
There are nearly 50 levels divided up into seven stages (days). Each stage has seven or eight levels and you have 30 minutes to complete each stage. You can access hints at any time but they have a time cost of two minutes. If you click randomly too quickly you will be awarded a time penalty of 30 seconds which you can ill afford to lose. Throughout the game you are frequently awarded wallpapers that you can peruse via the gallery link which is accessed from the main menu. You can set any of the wallpapers you’ve unlocked as your current wallpaper. (you can also copy all of the wallpapers directly from the games installed folder if you can’t wait to win them in game). I wanted to see what there was for the purpose of this review and was really impressed with many of the images. Some of which are stunning and all of which are taken in and around Prague. There’s also thumbnail images of all the different levels you’ll come across in the game. Each stage is introduced by a cartoon strip style story line. You can quickly skim over these if you wish by clicking on the screen, though personally I find such additions to a game adds to the overall enjoyment and dept of the game.
In the time I was able to play the game over two hour periods (after downloading the demo from two different distributors) I saw three game types. These were the traditional hidden objects screen where you have to find a multitude of objects amongst a particular scene. The objects are cleverly hidden against straight lines and curves as well as colors. The second style of board was a ‘find the difference’ type and the third was finding the shape of the object.
There are three mini games to be found during game play, which I presume are offered at the end of a stage. Unfortunately, because I never finished a stage, (I was literally seconds off finishing the last level in the first stage, but ran out of time over the 30 minute period), I never saw one. From reading several reviews of the game there are other styles of levels as well and include ones where you require a torch to find the objects and others where the image is done in monochrome, so such objects that require color are much more difficult to find.
Game Mechanics:
You will find the usual music and sound sliders in the options menu, as well as toggles for windowed mode, hints, wide screen and a custom cursor. The game is fully mouse controlled apart from inputting your profile name. You can create multiple profiles if you wish.
If you fail to complete a level be it from level 2 onwards to level 8 in each stage you have to start from the beginning. Each level remains the same with respect to where the hidden objects are placed, but if you have to replay a level, or play it using a different profile you’ll get different lists of items to find, though the spot the differences levels are the same whenever you have to replay them.
The music is very pleasant to listen to; a sort of pseudo classical tune that is (IMO) ideal as back ground music for such a game. Though if you wish you can change this to whatever you want provided you have an audio converter to convert your MP3’s etc to the ogg format; (you can download a couple from the giveaway freeware library). Once you’ve converted your favorite music you will have to rename the tracks to the ones found in the music folder.(I’d recommend backing up the originals if you do go ahead and change the music, though it shouldn’t be necessary) There are five tracks in total. If you have Winamp installed you can listen to music files in the ogg format if you wish.
Conclusions:
As a first for the game giveaway project this hidden objects game is okay. It has several of the elements of the best hidden objects games such as Magic Encyclopedia, Treasure Masters and Unicorn Castle, as well as others such as the Dream Chronicles series, the Hidden Expedition series and The Little Shop of Treasures games. However there are so many hidden Objects games around now that it’d take me ages to check my arcade games folder for all the different ones that are available (not that I have them all) for me to make comparisons with. I don’t think it’s up there amongst the best, but it is still a worthwhile challenge, especially with the 30 minute limit on each stage. That makes using the hint button very expensive.
Apparently the mini games are easy, which is a shame as I’d much rather have games like those found in Treasure Masters or Magic Encyclopedia, whose mini games are quite challenging.
I do think the game would be much improved if an untimed mode was added as I felt I was rushing all the time. It would have been nice to be able to search for the objects in a leasurly manner, otherwise I couldn’t really fault the game.
It did worry me that the game demo I reviewed crashed a few times during gameplay, and also that some objects were badly labeled. These alone would put me off actually purchasing the game. For example in level four I was asked to find a cigarette, which turned out to be a silver cigarette holder. When I fist saw the word ‘rook’, I assumed it was going to be the black bird, but it was actually the chess piece. On reading some reviews on the web, there were several complaints about this with other objects badly named; for example:
Quote:
I also found myself somewhat distressed over object descriptions, which were often entirely inaccurate. I’ve no problem with clues meant to be vague or misleading—such as “clippers” (which could mean anything from nail trimmers to sailing ships)—but I do not appreciate being asked to look for objects that simply don’t exist in the picture.
I was once told to find a “horn” that turned out to be a flute, a “tennis ball” that was really a baseball, and a “sphinx” that was in actuality a mummy’s casket.
Reference: http://www.gamezebo.com/games/mysterious-city-golden-prague/review
accessed 28th Aug 2008
That aside I’d still download this and check it out. It’s just about worth a reasonable 7 out of 10 when comparing it to the full spectrum of hidden objects games that are available now. If you’re not familiar with hidden objects games and want to explore them further I’d certainly recommend any of the ones I’ve mentioned above. All of which I chose to mention because of some originality in each game.
Interesting fact:
The weird looking animated clock face that you see to the right of the main menu is an copy of the 600 year old astronomical clock face found in Prague’s old Town Hall clock tower:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/260387