Common Sense Media Review
By Chad Sapieha
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Augmented reality shooter proves extremely frustrating.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 11+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
The Hidden
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
Players take on the role of an agent who hunts evil \"shades\" in THE HIDDEN, an augmented reality game for 3DS that uses the device’s camera. Kids walk around, sweeping the console in all directions in search of paranormal activity. Once located, players use a small stock of weapons to destroy the spooks. They can then harvest any leftover ectoplasm, which the G.E.I.S.T. lab uses to research new weapons and gear. Players take missions by reading emails, and can pin hot locations to a map, naming each spot for easy reference.
Is It Any Good?
There’s an undeniably fun idea at the heart of The Hidden -- namely, using the 3DS camera and gyroscope to find and fight spirits hidden in our world. Sadly, it’s lost just a couple of missions into the action. The problem? We couldn’t find any ghosts. Thinking we must be missing something, we went back through the game’s tutorials and directives. The only advice we could find was to keep scanning and searching. So we walked around some more. Aside from a couple of pink and orange circles that went skittering across the ground so quickly we weren’t even certain we’d seen them, we again found nothing. We consulted the instruction book looking for answers. Finding none, we decided to try scanning our surroundings one more time. We walked indoors and outdoors, took our 3DS into bright light and dark rooms, and pointed the camera at objects of every imaginable hue. But we were rewarded with nothing.
A quick internet search revealed we weren’t the only ones to encounter this frustrating problem. So we quit playing and sat down to write this review, with the intent of telling readers the game is all but unplayable. Consider yourself warned.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about augmented reality. What do you think of 3DS games that turn your surroundings into part of the game? Does it make the experience more interesting and immersive, or just plain creepy?
Families can also discuss staying active. Games like this one keep players moving, but what sort of physical activities do you like to take part in outside of games?
Game Details
- Platform : Nintendo 3DS
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Not available online
- Publisher : Majesco
- Release date : November 4, 2011
- Genre : First-Person Shooter
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : November 11, 2020
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