Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy

The Good
Whilst I don't think there is anything particularly original in the basic gameplay I do think that THQ have produced an excellent game in its genre. The things that stand out for me are: 1. The graphics – these are 3D and extremely well rendered and rather luscious. The characters are all very individual and the landscapes and interiors lovely. Sphinx is rather handsome and The Mummy is rather comical. The way they move and play reflects this too. 2. The music – way too intrusive and tedious in some games but not this one. It is nice and Egypt-like, appropriate, but low key. 3. I liked the way the characters move, basically just using the control stick. To go left just move the stick left and off they go. I’m hopeless with games that require you to point them in the direction you want to go with one stick and then have to move them with another (memories of Resident Evil….). You can point them in a precise direction if you need to by altering the camera angle. 4. Which takes me neatly to the camera – very quick and easy to pan round and get your bearings, but there’s no zoom so trying to figure out what a distant object might be or focusing on a distant target can be tricky. 5. The two protagonists play very differently. Sphinx is rather serious and The Mummy is rather humourous, and that adds to the game’s depth. Though having said that they both have tough challenges to get through. The Mummy is pretty much a puzzle-solver, and he has some tough puzzles to solve. I love games with puzzles so this aspect suited me to a tee. Sphinx has a much bigger range of problems – puzzles, tasks, exploring, challenges, fights etc. 6. The range of play – really covered in the above point. There is an excellent mix of puzzles, fights, challenges, tasks etc. and they have a good mix of difficulty too. Some appear very simple indeed, like the beach race. It’s easy to reach the pendant you have to hit, but it’s not so easy to hit it and you have to hit it on the first jump! Others require speed and/or precision and/or a logical mind. 7. The storyline is very clear and really good. Each dungeon takes you on neatly in the story with a well defined goal (but I won’t tell you what that is). 8. This is a minor plus point, but given how easy it is for Sphinx to die this is made up for by the fact that the Mummy never dies – how can he, he’s already dead! Invaluable on some puzzles, which may take several goes to complete.

The Bad
The things I didn’t like about this game were very few, but I’ll mention them anyway:- 1. It’s too easy as Sphinx to use the wrong item and waste a precious resource (easy for Sphinx to collect more once on a main map, but not in dungeons), but this could be more about me being a twit and pressing the wrong button, but it is very easy to do. 2. Some areas (though very few) are extremely difficult for Sphinx given his rather small life metre. You quickly go from three life containers (called Ankhs) to four, but then you’re stuck on four for a very long time and yet the enemies you meet get more numerous and tougher. At one point I had enough material to make two whole new life containers, but carried this stuff around for a long, long time, before I unlocked the part of the game where I could do anything with it. In the meantime I was fighting multiple enemies who could knock off a significant amount of health with one hit! Four life containers does not go very far. 3. You can’t target and it’s easy to miss those baddies due to the time it might take to line yourself up right and it renders jump attacks and slams useless against fast enemies – by the time you’ve landed they’ve moved! Plus, they seem to target you with absolute precision, so you use a jump attack, miss, but they’ve locked on to you before you can move again – just not fair! And in a multiple baddie situation……… 4. Minor point – some of the pitfalls wouldn’t have existed in these ancient times – laser type beams, electricity etc. As it adds to range of problems you have to face and can also provide the solution to others I can overlook it (perhaps the electricity comes from well hidden electric eels……). 5. You can’t speed the characters up – apart from Sphinx in one place where he can uncover special speedy pads, but their effects are short-lived. Would be nice to have a walk and a run option on the characters.

The Bottom Line
This is a goal-based RPG/Adventure game very like the Zelda games in its range of puzzles, enemies and tasks, but all set in ancient Egypt. It is challenging and it is fun as well as being a pleasure to look at.