The Egyptian Prophecy

The story to The Egyptian Prophecy is what caught my attention. A dying Pharaoh, Ramses II, wishes to extend his reign. So he makes a deal with the Egyptian god Amun-Re who grants his wish on one condition. The Pharaoh must construct the most colossal obelisk ever. Pharaoh recruits the distinguished engineer Paser to oversee the project. All seems well until terrible accidents begin to take place. Paser is severely wounded and progress on the gigantic obelisk comes to a halt.

Maya is a beautiful, young magician who must investigate the situation and put an end to the suspicious accidents before time runs out and the Pharaoh dies. The game is done in a first person perspective so you don’t always get to see Maya. However there are cut scenes throughout that allow you to see Maya, the character the player gets to control in The Egyptian Prophecy. In fact these scenes stand out and have surprisingly good graphics to boot.

As you manipulate Maya through this mystery traditional adventure features are prominently displayed. Each screen can be rotated 360 degrees in order to search your surroundings. As you find items and pick them up, they are stored in a convenient inventory. A click of the right mouse button allows access to the inventory and the interface appears smooth and user friendly. When you scroll over an object a brief description pops up to lend a hand.

Investigating the environment consists of waving the mouse cursor over every single thing on the screen. You either love this tried and true adventure genre method or hate it. To be honest, the environments aren’t bombarded with items so the pixel hunting isn’t as tedious as with other games. When something of interest is found the cursor changes to an appropriate icon that will tell you what to do.

The background area’s are crisp but often seem deserted. The character models look much better and move fluidly, especially Maya. Eventually she will have spells, which help to solve problems that she encounters. In general The Egyptian Prophecy has an intriguing story line that should attract hardcore adventure fans. Others may find the proceedings rather dry, almost like an interactive journey through the Egyptian wing of a museum as the documentary database can attest to. It may not be for every ones tastes but I enjoyed it as a decent change of pace from the many shooters that have been occupying my time lately.

Gameplay:  7
Tried and true adventure game fare with several good puzzles integrated nicely into the story, especially at the end. Maybe too dry for action oriented gamers.

Graphics:  7.5
The look is rather static with each screen almost like a snapshot. This should be a familiar quality to any adventure gamer. The character models and cut scenes were all done very nicely however.

Sound: 7.5
Environmental sounds are all appropriate, but never over the top. The music was, well, Egyptian sounding in a Hollywood cliché sort of way and I liked every bit of it.

Difficulty: Easy
Some of the later puzzles are challenging but most solutions fit well with the game progression.

Concept: 7
A mystery in ancient Egypt with a beautiful investigator/magician protagonist. Throw in a detailed documentary database with oodles of information concerning the many subjects contained in the game and tell me, what’s not to like?

Overall: 7.5
If you prefer action titles like Far Cry or you’re a gamer who is drooling over the latest screenshots of Doom 3 or counting the days until Half-Life 2 is released than The Egyptian Prophecy ain’t gonna do it for ya. If you love the methodical click-click approach of the adventure genre then I can recommend this one to you. The atmosphere alone will appeal to anyone interested in the subject matter.