Legacy Interactive announces the release of The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes 2 for the PC, Mac and even the iPhone/iPod Touch. They are releasing the game on the three major platforms available, which makes the game available to a wide audience.

Players are challenged to solve sixteen new crimes from murder to theft to kidnapping and other crimes. Players travel back in time to Victorian England to solve the crimes in a hidden object game. There are more than fifty different puzzles and mini-games to keep the player occupied. All of the typical Sherlock characters are in the game, such as Watson and Mycroft. Not to mention players will meet a cast of other characters in their travels.

If you like hidden object games or solving mysteries, check out The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes 2.

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Valet Hustle is an arcade style game or the iPhone/iPod Touch. The game is a cross between a time management style game and a puzzle game. Players have to park cars as fast as possible and then retrieve the cars when the customers show back up for the cars. Players have to manage the customers, manage parking the cars and retrieving the cars.

The cars won’t drive in until there is a spot for them to pull into. There is one spot to drop off the car and if that spot is full the cars will start lining up and eventually get mad and start honking their horns. As soon as the front car is moved to a spot, another car will fill the drop off spot. The cars are moved by tapping on the car and then tapping on the spot where you want to park the car. The cars will drive themselves to the spot the player clicked on unless there is another car in the way. There can only be one car driving on the path at a time.

When the cars are ready to be picked up, the player will see a customer appear and their car will get a number above the car that is theirs. The numbers are in order and the cars need to leave in that order. In other words, player can’t click on the number 2 car before bringing back the number 1 car. The player taps on the car with the number on it and then taps on the drop off space to return the car to the customer.

The story surrounding the game is a bit different. The story focuses on a lesbian theme and the main character gets kicked out of school for kissing another girl. This was not the first school she got kicked out of and her father had had enough and made her go to work as a valet and that is how the valet career began. If you would rather not play a game with a lesbian/gay theme, you may want to consider another game.

Over all, Valet Hustle is fast moving and will pass the time. There are levels, but the game doesn’t really stop until you lose, sort of like Tetris.  Eventually, you get a helpers along the way that will make things a bit easier, but the game is not easy by any means. The game gets fast and hectic and will keep players challenged. If you are into puzzle/arcade style games, check out Valet Hustle in the iTunes App Store.

Focus Home Interactive has announced the up coming release of Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Osborne House for the Nintendo DS. Players have to attempt to solve the case of the stolen genealogical records.

Queen Victoria’s genealogical records have been stolen and the family has asked Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery. Holmes has to figure out what is going on and why someone would want the Queen’s genealogical records. Players attempt to solve the mystery by solving dozens of riddles, puzzles and brain teasers of all sorts.

If you are into mystery games and like to solve puzzles, check out Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Osborne House when it is available.

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Braintonik has announced the release of Strimko a puzzle game that is trying to be as popular or more popular than Sudoku. The game has some stiff competition to be better than Sudoku, but it is good to have a goal.

Strimko uses the same concepts as Sudoku, but adds another dimension called streams. The streams make the logic puzzles harder to solve, so if Sudoku puzzles have become too easy for you, then this could be the game that will challenge you again. The game has two different play modes, classic and adventure. In classic mode, players are able to solve 200 different puzzles. In adventure mode, players help the main character, Luana, capture crystals. Players have to solve the puzzles correctly to unlock the crystals. In other words, a story has been wrapped around the puzzle solving.

If you are looking for a puzzle game, check out Strimko.

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Factory Games has announced the release of Valet Hustle for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Valet Hustle is a puzzle game where players have to park cars for the rich and famous, but one feature that makes this game stand out among other puzzle games are the characters that can be played. The characters are lesbian or gay.

“With Valet Hustle, we set out to not only create a game that is an absolute blast to play with incredible visuals and top notch audio, but we also wanted to make a social statement that gays and lesbians should have the same marital rights as heterosexuals,” comments Andrew Littlefield, Co-Founder and CEO of Factory Games.  “Our inspiration for the backstory came from my good friend, Lulu Magdangal, a successful salon owner in San Francisco who surprisingly just happens to be a lesbian. With Lulu’s help, we developed our unique, rags-to-riches backstory for Valet Hustle with a vastly different perspective from traditional videogames.”

Video games have dealt with all types of social issues, so why not deal with gay and lesbian issues? For the most part I think video game manufacturers stay away from touchy topics in fear that the game won’t sell well.

If you like puzzle games, check out Valet Hustle in the Apple App Store.