Third
Time’s
the Charm

This is the third game
in the French adventure series set in ancient Egypt. I’m a nerd, so I was always a fan of infotainment
games, and I played most of the old Cryo adventures in this vein:
Versailles, Pompeii, China, Egypt, etc. These games tended to be
a little on the dry side, but I enjoyed them like you would a good
documentary on The History Channel.

I’m happy to report
that this third outing into the dusty sands of time, which was
developed by Kheops Studio (who also developed
Crystal Key 2 for The Adventure Company) is a definite improvement
on those older games.

The game is a first-person,
point-and-click pure adventure with 360 degree scrolling. It’s a format that will be very familiar
to anyone who’s been playing European adventure games over
the last five years.

Hi.
I’m Maya, and
These Are My Breasts

The story (which is completely
independent of the first two games in the series) takes place during
the reign of Ramses II, one of
ancient Egypt’s great builders. His reign was one of the
longest in Egyptian history (about sixty years), and it’s
this span that’s the center of our story.

The heroine of the story
is the young, talented and hilariously unnecessarily buxom magician
named Maya. Now, you might think in
a first-person game that the main character’s appearance is
irrelevant. But the game is full of lovely cutscenes (more on those
later) that prominently feature Maya and her VERY prominent boobs.
Honestly, it’s just funny – and it in fact begs the question,
who do the folks at Kheops Studios think their target audience is?
Who do they think plays academic, history-based, database-sporting,
infotainment point-and-click adventures? Horny young straight guys?
All I can say is, tee hee.

At any rate,. Maya and
her voluptuous knockers are called upon to perform an urgent task
for the Pharaoh. It seems he’s made
a deal with the sun god, Amon-Re: If he erects a huge obelisk honoring
the god, he can have many years of extra life. This would normally
be no problem, since, as already mentioned, these sorts of erections
are Ramses’s specialty. However, mysterious and troublesome
events are happening in the quarry and the construction site. It
seems that some dark force wants to keep the obelisk from going up!

The Ancient Egyptian God of Bodacious Ta-Tas

Maya has he work cut
out for her. She’s got to investigate
the mysterious events that are rendering the attempts to raise the
obelisk impotent, she’s got to find a cure for the mysteriously
ailing head engineer, and she’s got to deal with some ancient
gods and bad folks who are trying to use the gods’ power for
nasty purposes.

The puzzles in the game come in three varieties. First, there are
the traditional inventory puzzles that require a careful exploration
of the environments and collection of objects, and then a judicious
implementation of those objects. These puzzles are generally competent
and logical, and one particular one, involving music, is quite good
indeed.

Second, there are several
hardcore PUZZLE puzzles in the game, and these took me by very
pleasant surprise. There’s a complicated
lock puzzle that’s quite challenging but completely fair, a
clever slider puzzle variant, a cool logic puzzle involving magic
orbs, and a very innovative double-maze conundrum. Yeah, I said “maze,” but
believe me, it’s a clever and fun-to-solve puzzle.

Finally, to help the pneumatic Maya keep abreast of the various
supernatural goings-on, she learns a variety of magic spells. Magic
spells in an adventure game? Indeed. These spells help Maya solve
puzzles and to get out of sticky situations.

I want to make special
mention of the final two puzzles in the game. Without giving away
specifics, I’ll just say that these two “puzzle
duels” are very well done and lots of fun.

All in all, it’s the most satisfying and solid collection
of puzzles I’ve found in a modest game in quite a while.

Thanks for the Mammaries

The backgrounds in the
game are attractive but not inspirational. The character models
fare better, and they include an appropriate
and believable variety in physical types (young peons are lean,
older authority types pudgier).

The cutscenes are the
best of the graphic elements. They have a languid beauty that borders
on the sensual. And, of course, they
have Maya’s huge boobs practically falling out of her gown.
It’s the kind of thing you’ll really like, if you like
that kind of thing.

The story is excellent. Maya has to deal not only with human allies
and adversaries, but with several of those pesky ancient gods as
well. The story is logical, dramatic, and has a good forward momentum.

If this review is a bit
on the short side, it’s because the
game is on the short side. More episode than epic, the game has a
no-nonsense brisk pace and a compact structure. Think of it as a
really good made-for-cable “Lifetime Television For Ancient
Egyptian Women” movie. I didn’t mind this, but if you’re
a stickler for long games (in which case you should probably be playing
RPGs, not adventure games) then the game’s brevity might rankle
you a bit.

As for me, I had a surprisingly good time helping Maya struggle
to bring all of the events back into the bosom of the benevolent
gods. Tight story, excellent puzzles, attractive graphics — what
else could we grouchy adventure game players ask for?

Final Grade: B+
Cup: D

System Requirements:

• Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP ®
• 600 MHz Pentium III
  or Equivalent (800 MHz Recommended)
• 16x CD-ROM Drive (24x CD-ROM Drive Recommended)
• 32 MB DirectX Compatible
  3D Video Card
• DirectX7 Compatible
  Sound Card
• 64 MB RAM

This
review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and
may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent
of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link
back to Just Adventure.