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Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh   Released: 1997 Manufacturer: Interplay Developer: Amazing Media In Brief: Mediocre game with a nice performance by Malcolm McDowell.
 For only five dollars, how could I resist a game starring Malcolm McDowell, the engaging English villain who has been acting sinister at least since Clockwork Orange. Oh sure, his career's not what it was, he does crappy TV sitcoms and the like, but he's still pretty cool. I was a little worried though; I've heard some stars hired for their name for an adventure game pretty much sleepwalk through their performance, but in the end, Malcolm was the one thing in this game that I didn't have to worry about.
In "Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh" you are a mining company man sent to Egypt to check out problems with a mine there. You are greeted by curmudgeonly Stuart Davenport (McDowell) and also run into your old girlfriend. You wander around, stuff happens, you keep getting killed and having to load your last saved game; typical adventure stuff.
My initial impression of Mummy was that it was a good starter game. Puzzles were painfully easy; find the object, find the place that needs the object, use the object. I was flying through the game, enjoying McDowell's frequent appearances, such as when you sneak through a window and McDowell comes through the door and says, "You just have to ask, I would have let you in." It wasn't a very interesting game, but it wasn't a lot of work; just a minor diversion.
Then the game turned on me. I started getting stuck. Usually this was because I didn't have an object. Much of this game is using the appropriate object, and since if you have the object you'll probably know what to do with it, some of the objects are difficult to locate. At one point in the game if you don't have a certain object you will die, and there's no way to go back and get it, so save often (also a good idea because you die fairly often).
Suddenly the game had gone from way too easy to way too hard and I was cheating on every puzzle. And almost every time it was because I hadn't seen something obscure, like that the move-forward arrow would take you to one of two different places depending on where you moved it, or hadn't realized I could click somewhere.
There was one clever puzzle in the game, which I didn't solve. I like to think that in a better game where I'd been less frustrated I might have solved it, but still, I didn't. It's surprising there's only one good puzzle, you'd expect none or a few. Perhaps some seven-year-old cousin of one of the designers thought of it, or something.
The graphics are crisp and clear, but unmemorable. In terms of acting, only Malcolm rises above competent. The inventory system is as bad as it could be: you can only see one item at a time, so much of the game consists in scrolling through an ever-growing assortment of junk. There are a couple of mazes that, while not bad as mazes go, serve to drag the game out without adding benefit.
As for the story, well, it gets pretty silly. And I just thought, who did leave those candles? Well, I guess it doesn't really matter. Just a loose end.
Still, Mummy was better than the other game I bought for $5, Lawnmower Man (Game Zone must have been paid off to say this was the best CD-ROM game ever, unless there were no other CD-ROM games in 1993). And while I have would rather not have bothered with this game, you've got to feel sorrier for Malcolm than for me: the best sitcom he could get starred Rhea Perlman and the best adventure game he could get was "Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh". -- Charles Herold -2000
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