by Ashley Shankle

Created on: February 07, 2009   Last Updated: September 19, 2010

Who knew the Aztecs were such slobs? In Coyote's Tale: Fire and Water it's the job of two sisters to collect items through cluttered and decrepit landscapes to charge their lances and challenge the Aztec gods.

Coyote's Tale is another hidden object game that has gotten popular with the casual gamer crowd. The sisters, Tletl and Atl, give two slightly different ways to play the game. Tletl is impatient, so while finding the items is easier with with Atl, there is a time limit. Atl is a little more calm, making her the obvious choice for more difficult, untimed searches. When they are done collecting the items they need, they are pit against a god in a game of their choosing. The girls mainly fight separate gods, and the challenge minigames are different for each one. It gives the player something to look forward to with minigames like matching, a Bejeweled-type game, moving a ball through a maze with air, a slider puzzle game and many more.

The locations Tletl and Atl travel to are well-drawn and fairly colorful. Several of the items the player is put in charge of searching for are relatively difficult to find. The item lists are varied and can include items as small as hooks, to as large as barrels. Some of the loot is easy and out in the open, while others are blended into the background so well that the player will be stuck scratching their head and clicking all over the screen for a few minutes. The difficulty of the hidden objects mode makes up for the minigame mode, which is surprisingly easy and entirely skipable.

The character art is colorful, but nothing really special or eye-popping. It's difficult to really tell what time period the game is supposed to be set in. All of the characters look and act modern, but the setting seems to be ancient. It seems like the developers wanted the modern characters to add to the humor, but it only serves to grate on the nerves with unbearable jokes and voice acting. While Coyote's Tale has fitting and well-composed music, the voice acting makes it worth putting on mute. The voice actors put absolutely no effort into playing their parts. It's almost like they don't want to put the effort towards a script that is so cheese it could be mixed with macaroni. The point of voice acting is supposed to be to add, not reduce, enjoyment of the game, and in Coyote's Tale it is severely detrimental.

Overall the game is entertaining, but nothing to write home about. The voice acting is truly bad enough to take it down to a 2/5.

Learn more about this author, Ashley Shankle.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.