Ankh

Ankh Review

Assil, the son of the designer of Pharaoh's pyramids, and a few friends have broken into a tomb for a little party. Unfortunately, their party disturbs a mummy, who proceeds to inflict a death curse on our hapless hero. In the process, the mummy loses an Ankh he's been holding. Assil acquires it without knowing what it is; all he wants is to get the death curse removed. Only Pharaoh can do that--but how to get to see Pharaoh, especially when his father has grounded him for his late-night activities??

"Ankh: Reverse the Curse" is a 3rd person point and click adventure in the classic style, harking back, as others have mentioned, to the old Lucas Arts games like Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. There are good and bad aspects to this. You can't die or even get stuck and there are none of the annoying timed puzzles that are becoming so prevalent in adventure today. On the other hand, there's A LOT of running around from location to location and some of the puzzles are the illogical sort that make some people hate adventure as a genre (yes, I really WOULD use a bed of nails to open a can instead of the more appropriate things I have in inventory...)

The puzzles are almost entirely conversation- and inventory-based--I can only think of one exception. Most are fairly easy if you have learned to think like a game developer. Otherwise you may find youself combining--or trying to combine--random inventory with random hotspots to try to get something, ANYTHING to happen. This happened to me several times. Also, there are many pixel hunts or places where a moving part sometimes shows a hotspot and sometimes doesn't. I found this unecessarily frustrating.

I also ran into a couple glitches playing the game: one where opening the treasure map caused the game to lock up so I had to reboot my computer and restart from the last save, and another where doing several pieces of a task out of order made it impossible to go on. Once again, I had to quit the game and reload the last save.

On the good side, this game is funny and, as I said, it has no timed sequences and you can't die (or not really. There is one kind of timed puzzle, but you can practice as much as you want and it's not very long). The voice acting is quite good, as is the 3-D, cartoon style animation. I quite liked the environmental F/X--in addition to background sounds, you could overhear people carrying on conversations, just as you might in a real marketplace. One section where you played two characters was pretty interesting; I wish you had been able to do that more. Your inventory remained relatively small and most items disappeared when you were through with them. The story developed well, from what seemed a simple task at first to a plot with wider implications that could well carry into the sequel (which is being made even as I write this). I considered the game neither too short nor too long, but just the right length for what it was trying to accomplish.

I also cannot quite understand the Teen rating here, unless it was due to the skimpy costume one of the female characters wore, or perhaps the scary Osiris character. Ankh, in my opinion, is a great game for the family to enjoy together as well as a great game for the single adventurer. I hope the sequel comes out soon.

Ankh Feature

• 200+ sports and racing games; more than 210 card and casino games
• Become immersed in Ankh's amazing ancient world this comic adventure
• Accidentally unleash a deadly curse; discover a precious amulet
• Over 1300 puzzle and board games; 570+ word and brain games
• More than 500 action and arcade games; over 420 Sudoku games

Ankh Overview

A new comic adventure in the tradition of PC classics like Monkey Island and Sam & Max! Animated Egyptian adventure game for children and adults of all ages. A humorous dialogue and cinematic soundtrack - a cast of characters similar to Disney's Aladdin.

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Oct 14, 2010 14:25:22

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