Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy

Released to coincide with (and probably to leech popularity from) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy promised two inventive new games in one. Sphinx, the game's protagonist, is a sword-wielding warrior of ancient Egypt. The cursed mummy of Prince Tutankhamen, Sphinx's sidekick, takes advantage of death by using his invulnerable corpse to solve puzzles.

The half-action, half-puzzle combination sounded interesting - unfortunately, the actual product doesn't quite live up to those measurements. As a game, Sphinx succeeds at little, and fails at much.

The game is set in ancient Egypt, but not the one in our history books. This Egypt is populated with mystical creatures, magical artifacts, and arcane powers which rule the land. The story begins as Imhotep, sage denizen of Heliopolis, sends his disciples Sphinx and Horus on a dangerous mission. The apprentices are to recover the Blade of Osiris from its hiding place in the Uruk, a land overcome with darkness. In the process, Horus is lost (to become a plot device later), and Sphinx uncovers some strange goings-on. Meanwhile, Prince Tutankhamen is preparing for his birthday party, and is caught in a trap to destroy him - separating his (somehow mummified) body from his soul.

The culprit behind all of this is Set, lord of evil, and the ultimate goal of the game is to bring Set's plans of conquest to an end. The game makes a number of allusions to Egyptian culture, but usually in nothing more than name. It also gets into the mythology aspect a bit with an explanation of Ra, Osiris, and Set, but this doesn't happen until the game is nearly over anyway. On that note, Sphinx has possibly the worst ending of any video game, ever. The final dialogue is trite and boring, though most of the game isn't much better (it just sounds weird for the king of darkness to confront the hero with the phase "You! You're the one who's been annoying me lately!"), and there are sequel hints that make most Hollywood movies look subtle.

The gameplay of Sphinx is divided as its title suggests - part of the time you'll be playing as Sphinx, and the other part as the cursed mummy Tutankhamen. Unfortunately, Sphinx's sections (which make up not half, but closer to 75% of the game) are sloppy, often uninspired adventure segments throughout the land of Heliopolis to fetch certain powerful items. His quests are made into puzzles, simply by virtue of the destinations being so unclear that half the challenge is finding out what the challenge is supposed to be. This is not to say Sphinx is completely worthless: some of his levels have moments of genius. But shoddy controls and poor design ruin a lot of it.

The real fun is in the mummy segments. His levels take place inside Uruk castle, which itself is filled to the brim with not enemies, but traps and puzzles. The mummy solves these puzzles through the use of his own wrappings - since he's functionally invincible, he can be lit on fire, electrocuted, flattened, cut into pieces, even transmogrified into a bat. The mummy's levels are extremely dense, each room several puzzles in one. The dynamics and design of these levels are remarkably clever; the only downside is that there aren't more of them.

Graphically, Sphinx really brings nothing new to the table. Most modern 3D adventure games have visuals at least as polished. Sound effects aren't terribly surprising either, with a mixture of fitting and awkward. The production's real triumph, aside from the mummy, is its soundtrack. The score's composition is so exquisite, the sound so eloquent, it's a shame that the game's dynamic music blending suffers from so many glitches (those aren't the only bugs, either - in fact, there's a fatal flaw about halfway through the game, where if you save at a certain location, quit, and come back, the rest of the game is incompletable).

Sphinx can easily be beaten in around or under 15 hours, with only another one or two hours if you do all the "sidequests" (consisting almost entirely of an unrewarding museum monster-collection task). There are minigames to play, but most of them become boring halfway through the first round. And since the game is completely linear, there's really not much replay value at all.

It isn't a total failure. The mummy parts of the game are a joy to play, and the music is melodic and catchy, but one wonders if it's worth the effort. Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy is a menagerie of ideas gone mostly wrong. If you want to submit yourself to the Sphinx levels for the sake of playing the mummy's puzzles, knock yourself out; but if you're looking for a well-rounded game, look elsewhere.

Progress: Complete