Cleopatra: Riddle of the Tomb

.While I do love adventure games, I have to admit that I tend to gravitate toward third-person adventures. I just enjoy games better watching a person walk around the screen interacting with things. However, often these types of adventures lack good puzzle quality and pleasing graphics. The first-person adventures are a bit better in these two areas.

Cleopatra: Riddle of the Tomb is a straightforward first-person adventure that offers a nice variety of interesting puzzles and also a well-drawn world. The story takes place in the latter days of the Egyptian Empire circa 48 BC, under Cleopatra VII. This Egyptian setting is a great source for the artwork and puzzles in the game. The backgrounds and objects in the game are nicely detailed and richly drawn, and are evocative of common perception of this historical period. The objects and the puzzles appear to be accurate, and the items and their puzzle counterparts are interesting not only for solving purposes, but also for information.

The game begins inside the compound of one Akkad, who - along with his daughter Iris - has been working on a secret prophecy on orders from Cleopatra. Thomas, a friend of Iris’s, visits the compound only to find Akkad and Iris missing. Alarmingly, there is a large amount of blood on the scene, along with other obvious signs of a violent struggle. As Thomas, it is the player’s task to search the compound for clues to aid in finding Akkad and Iris, and ultimately, to solve the prophecy.

The interface is not intuitive, and often doesn’t make any sense. The menu options are incorporated into furniture and other objects in an Egyptian house, but they are hard to find and hard to manipulate. Their location is quirky, too. For instance, a new game is initiated by clicking on a hallway opening, but a saved game is located under the game avatars location. (These are chosen when playing a new game.) The game options are strange, too, supposedly they can be adjusted by clicking and then sliding for volume control, but I couldn’t get them to work. The action icon disappeared every time I attempted to slide the mouse after clicking.

Another quirk in the game interface is the method of inventory placement. For some odd reason, all collected objects are placed in one spot on the inventory screen; it remains to the player to sort them out and place them individually into separate spaces. The one good feature of the menu is the location map, which allows players to quickly travel to various spots on the map.

The game is fairly engaging, with a good assortment of puzzles. They range from manipulative, mechanical types, to combinational inventory types. Most of them use historical Egyptian facts as a basis. These puzzles range in difficulty, but most fall in the medium difficulty level. There are two levels of difficulty available, that is set-up under the use of a “bad day/good day” game path, as prescribed by the astrological sign chosen at the beginning of the game. One’s horoscope can be good, or bad. This basically means the puzzles are easier or harder. The harder ones usually just mean that the player has to do more steps in solving a particular puzzle, not that the puzzle itself is any more difficult to understand. The main trick to solving puzzles is to remember to scan the ground exhaustively for clues. Needless to say, I had the “bad day” path. This meant that I had to use three or four objects to get a puzzle solved, versus one or two.

This is an enjoyable game, with a good period atmosphere. The locations and objects are interesting, and the puzzles fun to solve. I especially enjoyed the scenery while moving around. However, the game itself is pretty short and the story isn’t very engaging. As with most adventure games, there isn’t much incentive to play again, despite the “bad day/good day” alternate paths. Also, it would have been fun to have some type of historical journal or dictionary with Egyptian factoids, to make it more informative.

While this is a short game, the puzzles are nice, and the price is right ($20). For the player who enjoys puzzles in a first-person adventure game, with an ancient historical setting, this is a good summer diversion.

Gameplay: 7.5
Playing Riddle of the Tomb is fairly fun, and the puzzles are engaging. However, the story isn’t very interesting and the game is pretty short. A longer gaming experience, coupled with a better story and more historical information would have helped.

Graphics: 8.0
I enjoyed the graphics!

Sound: 7.0
Pretty average music and sound effects.

Difficulty: Medium
Most of the puzzles are of a medium difficulty. Often, the difficulty lies in finding an essential object.

Concept: 6.0
The content isn’t anything new.

Overall: 7.5
This is a nice enough game for adventure enthusiasts who are looking for an inexpensive game with lots of puzzles. The Egyptian setting is nicely done, too. A longer game time, plus more Egyptian history, would have been a good addition. However, for casual gamers, this is a good summer release and is better than many currently on the shelves.