Mini-review of Egypt 1156 B.C. Tomb of the Pharoah

Introduction:

	I had great hopes for this game, since I had enjoyed The
	Sacred Amulet (also called Aztec) so much.  I guess all of us
	are doomed to some level of disappointment in our lives.

Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes):

	 Cryo obviously spent a lot of time here, because the
	 graphics are not only gorgeous, but they also match reality
	 as much as possible.  The cut scenes are wonderful to watch.

	 One last note -- the excessively dark gamma setting of most
	 Cryo games is also a problem in this game.  You will need to
	 crank your monitor's gamma setting up quite a bit to play
	 this game.  I really wish Cryo would put a gamma adjustment
	 into their game configuration options.

Sound (music, voices, special effects)

	The music was awful and quickly became irritating.  It didn't
	have anything to do with the game at all; just some abrasive,
	Egyptian "sounding" music that droned on and on.  I think the
	game designers even knew how bad the music was, since the
	configuration had exactly one setting for sound options --
	turn off the music.

	I was going to comment about bad voice acting, but on
	reflection, I think the problem was more a case of very bad
	scripting.  The lines that the characters had to spout
	weren't anywhere close to what real people would say, so the
	voice actors were crippled before they even got started.  The
	dialog was all stilted and formal, almost as if the writers
	wanted the characters to sound like they were speaking some
	form of archaic language.  Whatever the reason, this was not
	a good game for listening to dialog.


Story (plot, theme, depth):

	You play the character of Ramose, whose father has been
	accused of tomb robbery.  Ramose must find the real tomb
	robber, and also find proof of his guilt in order to save his
	father.

	I can't really fault the basic story in this game, since it
	seems like it could form the basis of a fairly good game.

Characters (depth, development, interaction):

	Almost nonexistent characters.  As I have already mentioned,
	the dialog was awful, which made the characters seem like
	cardboard cut-outs at best.

Puzzles (difficulty, uniqueness, suitability, ugliness, linearity):

	This is where the game fails in the worst possible way.
	There really aren't any puzzles in this game at all.  The
	game mostly consists of going through every room, searching
	for articles or hotspots.  Once you have found them, you have
	little more to do other than show them to another character
	or apply them to another item in your inventory.  There is
	very little in the way of mental challenge in this game, and
	what little there is quickly becomes incomprehensible due to
	poor game design.

	There were a fair number of rooms which could be considered
	to be mazes -- darkly lit, lot's of moves available, and no
	easy way to tell where you were except by mapping them out.

	There were quite a few places where you could die without
	warning.  The deaths only made sense AFTER you had died, not
	before, so I consider this bad game design.

	The manual did not completely describe the rules for the
	Egyptian game of sennet.  It turns out that inferring the
	real rules for the game was the only real mental challenge in
	the entire game.

Controls (user interface, save/restore, sound/video adjustments):

	The user interface was quite good, but was slightly flawed in
	comparison to that of Aztec.  As in Aztec, the game allowed
	full scrolling of the scene in all directions, and Cryo even
	installed a speed control to help reduce the sea-sickness
	effect that this can cause.  The flaw was the online
	encyclopedia; while playing this game, you couldn't easily
	access it.  You had to "abandon this game" (Cryo's words)
	before getting to a point where the encyclopedia was
	available.

Bugs or problems:

	None.

Pros:

	Very pretty
	Historical and archeological accuracy
	Large encyclopedia of Egyptian "lore" and history

Cons:

	Bad music
	Bad scriptwriting
	Poor (or nonexistent) puzzles
	Death without warning

Conclusion:

	This game just wasn't any fun at all.  It feels like Cryo had
	spent all their effort building this accurate portrayal of
	Egypt, and then just pasted a quick excuse for an adventure
	game on top of it.

	About half-way through the game, my wife and I found a
	walkthrough and used it frequently thereafter.  We just can't
	get excited about playing a game which consists almost
	entirely of searching for objects in obcure places.

	If you can get this game really cheap, then it may be worth
	it for the encyclopedia and the graphics.  They allow you to
	walk through the game sites without playing the game, so you
	don't even have to expose yourself to that pain if you don't
	wish to.