Product Reviews

After great success in the 1990s followed by years of unpopularity, point-and-click adventure games seem to be enjoying something of a resurgence. Last year saw Dreamfall, a sequel to the successful but fairly old The Longest Journey, and the reappearance of old Lucasfilm characters Sam and Max in a series of short 3D games. This latest game follows on from the original Ankh, released almost a decade ago for Acorn computers.

The style of Ankh: Heart of Osiris is closer to the slapstick comedy of Sam and Max than the po-faced fantasy of Dreamfall. The game is set in Ancient Egypt and you

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play a young man called Assil. Having been thrown out by his girlfriend, Assil wakes in the gutter to find that a valuable artefact, the Ankh, has been stolen from him. This sets up two predictable plot objectives: reclaim the Ankh and the girlfriend.

Ankh has a traditional point-and-click interface. You move Assil by clicking at the point you'd like him to walk to, and you can interact with certain objects by clicking them. To progress, you need to collect objects from around the various locations, and use them together to solve logic puzzles. The puzzles in Ankh aren't quite as devious as some in other games, but they'll keep you thinking for some time.

The game looks good, with cartoon-esque characters and colourful locations. The sound isn't bad, either, with predictably Egyptian music and generally decent voice acting. Unfortunately, the script is less hilarious than it sets out to be: it might raise a wry smile at points, but you're unlikely to laugh out loud. In fact, it's the script that ultimately lets this game down. After a few hours, we didn't really care whether or not Assil reclaimed his love life or the Ankh, and we don't imagine you will, either.