Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh

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Review: Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh

No, it isn't based on the movie. In fact, apart from broad adherence to a classical horror-movie theme, Interplay's ever-so-timely re-issue of 1997's Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh has no relationship to the high-tech version of The Mummy currently making the rounds in the theaters. In fact, if the movie Mummy was like the game Mummy, you'd be out on the sidewalk after 45 minutes wondering what hit you.

The fact is: Not very much. This blend of full-motion video actors and rendered backdrops is the sort of adventure that you can finish over a long weekend. And I don't mean the Cheetoh-orgy lost weekend that hard-core gamers know so well. I mean a weekend in which you also go to the supermarket and the hardware store, take the kids to the movies and still have time to fall asleep in the hammock.

The shame of it is that this weekend's worth of adventure is respectable for as long as it lasts. The emptiness of the abandoned Egyptian mining camp where you de-plane is eerie, despite the scene-to-scene movement, and the game has a clear sense of place, with few of the oddities of facing that often accompany static graphic adventures. Malcolm McDowell does a nice job chewing the scenery as the camp boss. (An artifact has turned up, the workers have split and you've been called in to investigate.) The puzzles are generally well-conceived and logical, so you'll kick yourself when you happen upon the solutions. The game's essentially, and acceleratingly, fun-especially when you down get into the mines.

And while Interplay couldn't very well make a short game longer, it has made it slightly heavier with the inclusion of Mummy's predecessor, Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster--with a giddy performance by Tim Curry as Frankenstein--and a video of the original "The Mummy" from 1932.

The downside: The Mummy manual is on the CD. (Monster's is printed.) The filmed characters appear within a faint but visible frame that says quietly "we aren't in the same location as the backdrop." Mummy doesn't appear comfortable with the recent iteration of the QuickTime multimedia program it uses to play its filmed sequences. When I installed the included version 2.1 on systems sporting a more recent version, the game crashed during the intro. It worked only after I un-installed the up-to-date QT.

That's a bit more work than I care to do to play an FMV adventure game from 1997--particularly one that comes unwrapped so quickly.-- Peter Olafson / GamePro