Crime O’Clock [PC] | REVIEW

What do you get if you mix together Where’s Wally (or Waldo if you don’t live in the UK) with crime and time-travel? Crime O’Clock. Yep, that amalgamation of ideas might sound utterly bizarre, but it makes for an enjoyable hidden object experience that does something a little bit different to the norm.

Check out some screenshots down below:

At its core, Crime O’Clock plays like most other hidden object games, with players spending their time scouring through an array of busy maps and finding the items or details that stand out to them. However, there’s a big twist here: you’re actually working to prevent crimes BEFORE they happen. How do you do this? By using your special time-travelling technology, of course.

Players traverse through different moments of time in the map (known as Ticks) and have to spot the differences between them in order to pinpoint the different action points of a crime, with the culprit, victim, and varying objects in the environment all playing a key role. Working out how they connect between the different Ticks is pivotal to your success, with players amassing evidence and putting it all together.

“The imaginatively designed world offers plenty of unique and eye-catching details that bring an additional spark of creativity to each crime, whilst the fact you traverse across five different time periods that differ in revolutionary ways ensures that the there’s always something different to see.”

I’d be lying if I said a crime is tricky to solve when you’ve got the pieces in place, but it’s still satisfying to pick up on the major changes between Ticks to get to the bottom of the case. Flicking between the different Ticks is automated too, so the process is streamlined to ensure you’re not stuck looking for something that might not even exist in a timeline. Whilst it might have been nice to quickly flick between them yourself to see the changes in some instances, it does help alleviate any frustration when playing.

The different crimes are all presented in a clever way too, and whilst they might not always connect to each other directly, you’ll often witness peculiar activity when solving one crime that ends up proving significant in a later case. The imaginatively designed world offers plenty of unique and eye-catching details that bring an additional spark of creativity to each crime, whilst the fact you traverse across five different time periods that differ in revolutionary ways ensures that the there’s always something different to see. Whilst the variations in Ticks can be minor, the evolution seen across the expanded time periods always feels significant and helps ensure Crime O’Clock doesn’t get too repetitive.

Check out some screenshots down below:

And hey, there are even some mini game-style puzzles to complete to spice up the formula a bit, so it’s not like you’re spending ALL of your time cross-examining different maps. There’s nothing too complex on offer within their design, but they offer a neat little diversion that fits in well with the investigative theme of the main gameplay.

The biggest sticking point of the game is that whilst it has a lot of cool ideas interwoven into its gameplay, it’s still just a hidden object game. And if you don’t like those? You won’t like Crime O’Clock. There’s a story going on to keep things interesting and the investigative elements involved in gathering evidence ensure that the game has plenty of tricks up its sleeve, but ultimately, you’ll be scanning through a lot of the same scenes over and over again as you try to find the hidden clues. The time-bending aspects offered more than enough to keep the game entertaining for me though, so if you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll definitely enjoy this creative take on it. My only real qualm? The game’s black and white aesthetic can make some of the environments look a little samey, even if the details within them are massively different.

Developer: Bad Seed
Publisher: Just For Games
Platform(s): PC (Reviewed), Nintendo Switch
Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1736290/Crime_OClock/