Mini-review of Riddle of the Sphinx

Introduction:

	I have a warning for you right up front - I enjoyed playing
	this game quite a bit, so please don't get too discouraged by
	all of the ranting that follows.  In spite of this game's
	problems (and it has quite a few), it was still quite a bit
	of fun.  Anyway, on to the review...

	Riddle of the Sphinx (hereafter known as ROTS), brings me
	back to the days of Myst in many respects.  No character
	interaction at all, and many mechanical puzzles.  If this
	sort of game turns you off, (and you hated Myst), then don't
	even bother reading any further.

	The game starts off as a bit of a puzzle hunt around the
	Sphinx and the great Pyramid.  Up to this point in the game,
	there is a lot of realism to the entire setting, almost like
	one of the Cryo historical games.  However, it isn't long
	before ROTS turns into an out and out fantasy.  The authors
	quite happily ignore history and physics to make an Egypt
	designed for gamers.  If the real pyramid had as many rooms
	and passageways as this game portrays, the entire thing would
	collapse into a pile of rubble.  For that matter, I always
	wonder what the energy source is for moving those massive
	stone doors, or how torches can burn in sealed chamber.  It
	doesn't really matter, since the end result is a pyramid of
	your wildest fantasies; enough secret passages and puzzles to
	satisfy even the most jaded adventurer.  Like I said at the
	beginning, I found it a lot of fun.

Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes):

	The graphics are very high quality, with a gritty sense of
	realism throughout.  ROTS is based on Quicktime, and its VR
	mode wasn't up to the standard of the rest of the game.
	Overall, the view was wonderful, and I *really* enjoyed the
	scenery throughout.

Sound (music, voices, special effects)

	When I first started the game, the music was interrupted
	every time I moved.  Once I found the tips and hint pages, I
	found the adjustment in the Quicktime control panel that
	solved the problem.  I do wish that the game had made that
	adjustment for me as part of the install, since it did
	install its own version of Quicktime on my system.

Story (plot, theme, depth):

	Pretty minimal at best.  Your best friend is dying from "the
	curse" on a scroll he found, and sends for you to solve the
	mystery he uncovered.  Enough story to get you into the game,
	but not one iota more.

Characters (depth, development, interaction):

	None whatsoever, since there is no character interaction at
	all.

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

	I enjoyed the puzzles.  They were mostly mechanical in
	nature, with a lot of hunting around for inventory items
	which contained clues to the puzzles, or were keys to locks,
	or mechanical bits needed to make a mechanism work.

	There were timed puzzles in a few locations, but the timing
	restraints were pretty lax.  I had no problems getting through
	any of them.

	There were 2 mazes, both of which should have been easy,
	since the game even had maps of them for you.  What made one
	of them miserable was a navigation system from hell.  I cover
	this in the next section, but let's just say that the game
	controls made some easy jobs almost impossible.

	You die quite a bit in this game (unless you play it
	absolutely perfectly the first time.  Take my advice, save a
	lot.

	Several inventory items were in such unlikely places that I
	never even tought to look there, and even after consulting
	the walkthrough, I had trouble finding them.  The combination
	of unlikely location, lousy navigation controls, and a cursor
	that didn't change when it should, made it a necessity for me
	to consult the walkthrough.

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

	ROTS was node-based movement, with a navigation system
	designed and imported straight from hell.  Here are some
	examples of why I found it so bad:

		Non-symmetric movements in many areas ; turn left and
		your view turns 90 degrees to the left.  If you turn
		right to go back, you spin right more than 90
		degrees.  Same thing with forward and back in some
		places.

		Sometimes if you clicked to go forward, it would
		automatically turn you around the upcoming corner.
		Sometimes it would turn you 45 degrees around the
		corner.  And sometimes, it would just leave you
		facing a blank wall.

		An up pointing cursor for going down stairs.

		There were either too many Quicktime VR nodes (where
		you can spin around and look up and down smoothly),
		or not enough.  The game allowed you to disable the
		VR modes, but you really needed them to get your
		bearings at times.  I don't know how many times I
		wanted to see something that was a few degrees out of
		my point of view, but I just couldn't do it at that
		node.

	The navigation was probably the most frustrating part of the
	entire game.  They should have re-mapped the nodes and
	movements completely before releasing this game.

	While I am on navigation, there were some areas of the game
	which got really, really tedious.  In one place, you must
	repeat an operation multiple times.  Each operation required
	at least ten movements, each one with a transition, and some
	of them into and out of VR mode (which was slow).  Sometimes
	it seemed like you had to keep moving forward forever, for no
	good purpose.  The designers could have easily shortened a
	lot of operations in the game, and reduced player boredom
	considerably.  They did include a "zap" mode to traverse
	areas quickly, but this was never available from within a VR
	node.

	The inventory management was a mixture of the useful and the
	bizarre, but bizarre won over.  If you pick up an object, you
	had to click on a knapsack to add it to inventory.  If you
	made the mistake of clicking on another object in the
	inventory bar, then the item you were holding was "magically"
	transported back to where you originally got it from.  People
	must have complained bitterly about this, because the patch
	caused a Windows modal popup to come up and ask you if you
	really wanted to send this item back.  I have no idea why
	they didn't just provide a little trash can for dumping
	unwanted inventory items into, and allow you to click
	wherever you wanted.

	The save game system several annoying features.  When I
	started playing, I wanted to open up a saved (and named)
	game.  Even though I had just started the game, it always
	asked me if I wanted to save before loading another game.
	The other annoyance was when you got killed in the game; you
	had to load a saved game (or quit), but they insisted on
	asking if you wanted to save first.  Pretty stupid question
	when you are dead, and can't do anything.

Bugs or problems:

	The patch didn't always give you the inventory pop-up in all
	cases.  Towards the end of the game, there were a few items
	where it just went ahead and sent them back to where they
	came fromwithout asking.

	I declined to install the Quicktime browser plugins, and it
	appears that this was a mistake.  Every time I started the
	game, I got a Quicktime popup indicating that some of it was
	out of date, and would I like to update.  I *really* hate
	Quicktime (more reasons in a bit).

	The game install did not set the Quicktime defaults correctly
	(or at all).  Instead, to prevent music interruptions when
	moving, you had to find the right web page and get the
	information on how to do it yourself.

	An inventory item literally disappeared on me, and no, I
	didn't do it myself.  Another person on the csipga newsgroup
	also experienced this problem, forcing her to replay a good
	chunk of the game.  I was lucky; the item I lost was only
	needed for the information it contained, so I could just
	refer back to an older saved game.  Like I said, save your
	game frequently.

	The ending has a long monologue in a room with a a large
	amount of echo.  My hearing isn't that good lately, and they
	didn't provide any option for subtitles.

Install/uninstall:

	This is a new section I am going to add to my reviews, and
	it's all due to this game and Quicktime.

	The game installed just fine, and it appeared to uninstall
	too.  However, I started digging around in my system, and
	found that it didn't exactly do a good job.  The start menu
	was left in my Program menu, and there was a fair number of
	Omni Creative registry keys left hanging around.  Even worse,
	it didn't uninstall Quicktime, nor did it even ask me if I
	wanted it uninstalled.

	I then went and uninstalled Quicktime, and found that it left
	over 30 files in my Windows and Windows/System directory.  I
	am still digging out Quicktime keys from my registry, and it
	appears that there are literally hundreds of them scattered
	about in there.  As far as I can tell, uninstalling Quicktime
	just removes surface evidence, and leaves everything else on
	your system.  Nasty email to Apple will follow...

	Since they both left things around, both ROTS and Quicktime
	get bad marks for their uninstall operation.

Pros:

	Beautiful graphics, and wonderful locations to see.  This is
	the Egypt of your fantasies, and makes the temple in Indiana
	Jones look crude and simple.

	Enough secret passages, stone doors, and whatnot to satisfy
	even the most jaded adventurer.

	Enjoyable (and solvable) puzzles.

Cons:

	Navigation system from hell
	Inventory system from hell
	Uninstall which doesn't do a full job
	At least one nasty bug (disappearing inventory item)

Conclusion:

	ROTS had a lot of problems, and definitely should have been
	play tested more before release (or rewrite).  In spite of
	all these problems, I still found myself enjoying the game a
	lot.  If you want a comparison, think of it as Myst-like,
	with better graphics, more locations and puzzles, worse
	controls, and more bugs.  I won't give it a "top ten" spot,
	but it is definitely a playable game (and it's pretty cheap
	too).