Non-review of Mystery of the Mummy
Copyright Murray Peterson, 2003

Introduction:

 I seem to be having very bad luck with games lately.  Mystery
 of the Mummy is another game that my wife and I were
 unwilling to finish.  After three evenings of play, we
 quietly uninstalled the game and went to read a good book.

Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes):

 The game is played in first person, with our character
 (Sherlock) being shown in third person during the cutscenes.
 The graphics were quite good, with lots of detail and
 lighting that suited the intended mood of the game.  Although
 dark in tone, I didn't have problems seeing items in the
 screen.  The cut scenes were well done and very pretty.

Sound (music, voices, special effects)

 The game does not allow you to set the music and voices
 levels independently.  This caused a problem in the opening
 scene, where the music and special effects made the voiceover
 almost cmopletely unintelligible.

 Music and sounds effects were acceptable, without anything
 really bad (or good) that stands out.

 Sherlock's voice is irritating after a short period of time;
 a pinched British accent done in a fairly high pitched voice,
 making comments that quickly grow tiresome.  We found
 ourselves turning the volume completely down at times.

Story (plot, theme, depth):

 Supposedly, you are playing the character of Sherlock Holmes,
 and have been asked to solve the mystery of how a friend's
 father "really" died.  In reality, it appears that Sherlock
 was merely a paste-on character; there is nothing in the game
 that would make it work any worse if the main character was
 named "Joe Gamer".  In other words, the story really has
 nothing whatsoever to do with Sherlock Holmes.

 I should mention that there really wasn't all that much story
 either.  Beyond some letters left behind by various people,
 you are wandering around a house trying to get through locked
 doors and find the secret passages.

Characters (depth, development, interaction):

 There really isn't any character interaction in this game, at
 least for the portion that we played.  Our character
 (Sherlock Holmes) is revealed through all of the comments he
 makes when looking items and solving puzzles.  This is one of
 the major problems we had with the game; the voice was
 irritating, especially when he continually made snide
 pronouncements.  I'll give one example.  The very first
 puzzle in the game has three likely solutions, with only one
 that really makes sense.  However, one of the less sensible
 solutions was in fact the one that worked.  When we solved
 the puzzle, Sherlock comments with "Well, that was obvious"
 in a snide tone.  This is not a good way to make the gameplay
 enjoyable.

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

 The game designers obviously ran into problems when it came
 time to design the puzzles for this game.  MotM contains a
 poorly thought out mismash of puzzles that have been pasted
 into the game with little thought.  For example, clicking on
 a box beside a door gives you the voiceover comment "I'll
 need something to open it".  After solving a different
 puzzle, clicking on the same box now brings up a slider
 puzzle.

 There are many timed sequences.
 There are slider puzzles.
 There are some Rube Goldberg contraptions that need manipulating.

 There is pixel hunting, since you need to hunt everywhere for
 various objects that have been hidden in unlikely places for
 no apparent reason.

 Overall, the puzzles just didn't have much integration with
 the environment itself.  Too many of them were obviously just
 pasted in place to act as a barrier to your progress, without
 having anything to do with the game itself.

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

 Movement is node-based, and some of the node transitions make
 navigation very difficult.  For example, if you go through a
 door, you never knew where you would be facing afterwards.
 Go through one door and you would be facing back towards the
 door you just came through.  Go through the next door, and
 you would be facing a door across the hall.  The result was
 very confusing at times.

 The cursor was a picture of Sherlock's pipe, which was a
 distracting choice -- visually, it had no good hotspot.

Bugs or problems:

 None

Install/Uninstall:

 No problems encountered.
 The game allows a maximum install, which reduced the CD
 access to a minimum.
  
Pros:
 Nice graphics
 Good cutscenes
 Good sense of atmosphere

Cons:
 Snide, irritating voiceovers by Sherlock
 Pastiche of poorly integrated puzzles
 Timed sequences
 Sliders

Conclusion:

 It's very sad when you find yourself playing a game in order
 to get it finished, instead of playing it for enjoyment.  The
 irritating character of Sherlock, combined with poorly
 designed puzzles and awkward navigation, makes this game less
 than enjoyable.