To get a feel for today's game before you download it, please check out the following game play videos of Motor Town: Soul of the Machine (Spoiler alert, walkthroughs)HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. You can also other videos and walkthroughs in the ‘Other Reviews and Videos’ section below.

Motor Town: Soul of the Machine

In Brief

A Hidden Object adventure

Installation:

Motor Town: Soul of the Machine downloads to a 215 MB zip file that unzips to three files, (a setup.gcd security wrapper, the set-up file and a read me). Those with multiple hard drives can save games on any drive they wish. The newly installed game is 524 MB in size. The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed by the user if you prefer:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\Motor Town - Soul of the Machine

Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop, three of which can be safely deleted (Play Online Games, MyPlayCity Games and shortcuts to a free online game which vary each week). Also, if you don't like icons installed to the quick launch task bar, make sure you uncheck the box when the additional tasks window appears (after the Select Start Menu Folder window)

Introduction:

Help an ambitious journalist conduct her own investigation in a fascinating game Motor Town: Soul of the Machine! The main character is eager to write a sensational article, so when she gets a task to interview a genius inventor Paul Camping, she is more than delighted. But everything turns out not the way she expected. Paul Camping was confirmed that cars had souls and invented his gadgets basing on this theory. The inventor has mysteriously disappeared, and someone has tried to destroy all the documents. Is the old man still alive? Why hasn't he spoken to anyone for ages? Are these ghosts that appear in front of you from time to time or is it just an optical illusion? Try to answer all these questions by finding hidden objects and solving tricky puzzles in a stunning game Motor Town: Soul of the Machine!

Reference accessed HERE 26th August 2018

The Game:

In Motor Town: Soul of the Machine, you step into the role of a New York City reporter seeking her big break by way of an interview with a brilliant but reclusive inventor of some of the world’s first automobiles. But he doesn’t just make cars; he believes that cars, like people, have souls, and while the reasons for, or significance of, that belief is never explored, the fact that he’s such a weirdo apparently makes him a worthwhile subject. It’s a perfectly competent hidden object adventure, but really just not all that terribly interesting.

Motor Town has solid technical chops, with attractive, hand-drawn visuals, a smattering of animations, a decent soundtrack and even some voice acting, and there are plenty of hidden object scenes and a nice variety of mini-games, too. A journal automatically keeps track of all the notes and hints you’ll run across as you play, and the hint function will not only reveal hard-to-find items but also point you toward the next step in your journey if you should happen to lose track of what you’re doing. Even the basics of the plot will likely have a familiar ring to veterans of the genre: A genius of somewhat advanced years finds his benevolent, world-changing invention in the hands of supernatural ill-doers, and only you can rescue him and save the day.

It’s a sprawling game but linear, with most of the information and puzzle pieces needed to solve a challenge located reasonably nearby. You’ll do a good bit of running around but it’s almost always contained within a relatively small area, so you won’t be making long trips back and forth from one end of the map to the other. The hidden object scenes are well-rendered but, multi-part objects notwithstanding, very conventional, and the mini-games themselves are skippable but generally so easy that you shouldn’t have to, especially if you remember to reference your journal if you do happen to end up stumped.

The trouble with Motor Town is that while it hits most of the points on the hidden object adventure checklist, it’s such a by-the-numbers experience that it quickly falls prey to the dullness of routine. Everything about it feels half-hearted and rote, as if it’s there simply because it’s a staple of the genre, and the game adds absolutely nothing of its own to the formula. The supernatural elements, the kindly grandfather figure who’s been duped by a ridiculously-named villain with a goatee and an overcoat, the diabolical plot that presumably threatens the world; all of these story elements are present without even the most cursory of explanations, and it ultimately ends up swirling together in a senseless, uninteresting morass.

Even the world in which Motor Town is set seems schizophrenic. The subject of your interview created several early automobiles and launched one of the first automobile factories in the world before withdrawing from society, yet the streets are filled with cars ranging from the early 1900s to the late 1970s and early 80s. And while the idea of cars with souls is certainly interesting – interesting enough to catalyze your journey – its significance is never even hinted at, much less investigated.

There is voice acting, as mentioned, but that’s not necessarily a plus, since it ranges in quality from bad to truly awful. And despite the size of the game world, Motor Town isn’t a particularly long game, clocking in at around three hours – although that’s not necessarily a minus, since I can’t imagine that too many tears will be shed when it’s over. And when it is over, it doesn’t really end so much as just stop, with no resolution, explanation or even a semi-interesting cutscene; it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that you only know it’s finished because the narrator says, in essence, “the end.”

Motor Town: Soul of the Machine isn’t a bad game, and by some measures – visual fidelity, technical stability, hitting all the notes in the hidden object adventure theme song – it’s quite solid. But it’s also utterly undistinguished in every possible way, lacking in imagination, coherence or anything else that makes a hidden object adventure more than just a digital picture-puzzle book. With so many other options on the market, those are problems that can’t, or at least shouldn’t, be easily overlooked.

Edited reference accessed HERE. Originally posted by Andy Chalk on Feb 19, 2013. Edited and reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 26th August 2018.

Other Reviews and Videos of Motor Town: Soul of the Machine:

You can see community reviews of Motor Town: Soul of the Machine HERE and HERE, and you can see some videos of game play (Spoiler alert, walkthrough videos) HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Conclusion:

The game has decent visuals is technically solid and has a decent number of hidden object scenes and mini-games, however the game is uninspiring with bad voice acting.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE; or, If you prefer to purchase the game you can get it directly from HERE via Big Fish Games.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving away Motor Town: Soul of the Machine with the toolbars etc removed and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games.

Suggestions:

After you've had an opportunity to play Motor Town: Soul of the Machine please take a few moments to give some positive or negative feedback about the game; for example, what you liked or disliked, or how improvements could be made to make it more enjoyable and perhaps change your mind about this game? If you don't like Hidden Object games at all, please explain why? If you don't have time to post a comment today, please do so at your convenience. These comments will always be accessible for as long as this site is open and provide a valuable resource for game developers, thank you. To access the comments once the giveaway is over, open the game giveaway to its home page then scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Archives and select the date the giveaway was live (giveaway days are in bold type). This will open up the appropriate page for you to post your comment or review.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly roundup of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

The rest of the information that used to be posted here can be found in the forums HERE. Also, check out Delenns thread over in the game discussion forums for details of other free games and offers HERE

Having problems installing today's game?

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Motor Town: Soul of the Machine to work please visit the problems section, which you can find in the FAQ's thread HERE. Also read through the community’s comments because sometimes fixes have already been posted. The main issue we have is with the giveaway wrapper, which uses a Themida based code to protect the games executable. Unfortunately, Themida is also used to hide malware; so, as a precaution, some security software may block the installation and sometimes even delete the executable file. Blocking or deletion is usually determined partly by the way your computer is set up. Usually you'll get a message saying ''the file is corrupted'', but, the files are okay. There are a couple of things you can do to overcome this issue. The first is to reboot in safe mode with networking, install the game then reboot, or secondly you can (at your own risk) temporarily turn off your security, install the game, then turn your security back on. A note of reassurance to those that choose the latter and quicker method. The game giveaway team have been giving away games for over a decade (Dec 2006 & prior to that, via the main site 2 or 3 times weekly from Oct 2006 to Dec 2006) and have 'NEVER' given away a game infected with malware; they always test every giveaway with several of the top anti-malware suites to ensure all games are free from malware.

If for any reason you want to contact the giveaway team, for example, if you have a problem getting the latest game or other issues that the FAQ's thread or these comments don't cover or solve or if you have a game to offer the community you can do so HERE