This was originally given away on August 26, 2018 HERE. Where it received a positive 90% from 39 votes with 10 comments.

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

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.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

The latest game from Epic Games is called Creature in the Well, a top-down, pinball-inspired, hack-and-slash dungeon crawler.

Please see Delenns threads for Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. It’s worth adding these to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, it’s yours to keep.

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.