Curse: The Eye of Isis Review

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Curse: The Eye of Isis

Review by Old RoosterNovember 2003

Curse: The Eye of Isis (let’s call it Curse) has been hanging around the gaming world for at least two years, as an unreleased product. References can be found to interviews and previews from the fall of 2001. Usually this suggests some problems in completing the game in a way satisfying to a publisher, and it did serve as a cautionary flag to this reviewer. Further, even with the game being out more than two weeks at the time of this writing, this is likely the first review you will see.

Having said that, though, the survival/horror genre is one of my favorites, and I was quite looking forward to this Dreamcatcher/Wanadoo release. Unfortunately, Curse proved to be rather a disappointment, although it does have a few almost redeeming qualities. Let’s examine the game.

“The Pursuit of Knowledge Can Carry the Gravest Price” —Darien’s Father

The Eye of Isis, a priceless Egyptian statuette, has mysteriously disappeared from a London museum in 1890. It was protected by an ancient and evil curse that causes madness or violent death to all who come into contact with it. Mummies, but not daddies, are raised to exact revenge on the idol’s desecrators, as well as anyone else standing around—desecrator or not!

You play the hero, Dr. Darien Dane, summoned by his friend, Vicky, to find the artifact before it completely wipes out greater Victorian London! You’ll spend considerable time in the museum, ride a steam train to the coast, board a huge cargo ship, pass through a desert village, and finally enter the dreaded labyrinthine pyramid where the Eye of Isis statuette must be returned. Without your success, the angry deities will never get back to eternal sleep. Heavens!  Along the way, you’ll encounter a few helpful citizens, a few not so helpful, a twist in the plot, and hordes of very nasty mummies. 

Do you see now why this game was of interest? In fact, while writing this, I’m wondering anew why I felt let down. Let’s move on.

“Sorry, I’m Afraid the Museum Is Closed to the Public” —Warning Sign

After checking into your fine hotel, you proceed to the museum to meet Victoria, only to discover there’s a problem. But a simple sign certainly doesn’t deter our intrepid Dr. Dane, and you begin your frightening quest with an entry into the main hallway. At this point, things start to get really creepy.

Indeed, the ambience and atmosphere of Curse, especially initially, is most impressive. Doors close loudly and unexpectedly, suggesting a nearby and not particularly welcome “presence.”  Random lightning and thunder makes one jump. The eight available graphics choices range from 640×480 16-bit to 1280×960 32-bit. Curse ran smoothly at 1024×768 on my midrange system.

Except for a pervasive, and understandable, darkness, especially in the museum, the graphic quality of Curse is excellent.  The touch of Wanadoo is evident, and one thinks of the Dracula pair of games. Cutscenes are well done, using the game engine, and special effects are very fine. The movement of the foggy green Curse is foreboding; the raising and death twitches of the inhabited mummy/zombies is “realistic;” and the barbecuing effect of your flame thrower is grimly satisfying.

Darien is controlled in third-person with a mouse and keyboard combination. The mouse smoothly rotates our hero, while WASD or arrow keys provide direction. However, and it’s a big however, the management system gets quite complicated after that effective beginning.  True to its console orientation, Curse has a convoluted inventory approach. First, Darien needs to perform a number of actions and, with all of these, including securing and even using inventory, it is necessary for his head to be turned towards the desired “target,” whether door or enemy. Then you find yourself introduced to a series of F keys—F5 to access inventory, F1 to use or equip within inventory, F2 to view a not very effective map, F3 to combine items within inventory, F4 to leave the inventory. You also need to be concerned about shooting and targeting the mummies and others. Right mouse button is needed, plus F12 to reload weapons, F9 to change targeting with multiple enemies, F10 to target particular weak spots.  Frankly, I’ve never experienced either a survival/horror game or even a shooter with this convoluted an approach. The net result takes away considerably from gameplay, particularly in the heat of battle.

“You Cannot Proceed Without a Key” —Abdul

Not surprisingly, many doors are locked, and you spend considerable time and energy looking for keys, accesses, letters giving ideas, switches to activate. This is expected and acceptable, but oftentimes the setting where the key is to be found is so dark as to make it very hard to distinguish a hotspot.Fortunately, playing on the easier of the two settings, you are given hints, such as, “You cannot proceed without a key” (duh) and “You have found an oil lamp; do you wish to take it?”

As regards oil lamps, the developers have taken justifiable pride in not only the 19th century setting, but also what they term “Victorianized components” in the inventory. Although there is a flamethrower available at one point, you’re as likely to be using a policeman’s truncheon in your confrontations. The museum rivals the best of classic haunted houses, with its Atrium, Torture Room, Science Exhibition, Disease and Medicine Room, and claustrophobic sewers! Unfortunately, the included and developing map is not especially precise, and you can easily become lost or disoriented.

“Great Scott! Poor Devil!” —Darien

Although shocked by the first “zombification” he has to dispatch, Darien soon realizes he will spend a good part of his adventure fighting, and possibly dying. Here, too, we find a serious awkwardness with the control scheme. Some of this has to do with the roving camera, occasionally painting you into a corner without clear visibility of nearby attackers until too late. As mentioned above, the actual act of fighting can be awkward. In my first go-round, with a possessed guard, I seemed to get stuck in a lethal embrace, and I couldn’t pull back to effectively wield my truncheon. Part of this is camera control, part is the weird targeting scheme mentioned above, and it’s possible part may be a bug—not of the zombie type, but of the program type.

Speaking of bugs, the fine sound effects dropped to an almost inaudible level during my confrontations with enemies. Hopefully, this will be corrected with a patch.

Combat isn’t as frequent as in those games where hordes of zombies are continuously rushing at you, but it is a major component of Curse and is difficult to judge, soon becoming button-mashing with one eye on your health meter. By the way, you’ll want to pick up all the menthol and smelling salts you can find to increase your health. It’s during this frenzied combat that you start to think about your last saved game.

“Abdul, Where the Heck Are You?” —Old Rooster

Curse is one of those games where saving is done at a particular location or, in this case, a traveling location—in the form of your enigmatic associate, Abdul. When first met, he kindly gives you an initial orientation. You discover that not only can you not carry all of your inventory, but you also have to leave excess pieces with him (or Victoria) and locate him or her if you need to reaccess those items. Further, saving a game can only be done by speaking with Abdul. Now, although this isn’t as bad as the old Resident Evil typewriter approach, sometimes Abdul just isn’t nearby or readily found when you need him the most, as at the beginning of a fight with a possessed bear! Terminal depletion of health and curse levels (as in losing) then takes you back to your last save (at least 15 are allowed), and a repeat of the steps to that bear confrontation. Of course, now you’ll be on the lookout for Abdul, with that ineffective map not being of much use even if you do remember in which room you saw him last.

And is Victoria of much help? Game descriptions suggest a two-party affair, much as with Alone in the Dark 4. However, Vicky is very much the assistant, giving a few helpful ideas, possessing a couple of unique weapons, but mostly of use in holding inventory items. She does come more into direct play later in the game.

“Curses, Foiled Again!” —Old Rooster

There is a website that sometimes rates games as “for fans of the genre only.” Curse: The Eye of Isis falls into that category, I’m afraid. What initially is frightening and most impressive soon falls into a routine of frustration, key-mashing, even relative boredom.

A good deal of this letdown has to do with the “consolitis” disorder with which Curse is infected. Even though this PC version seems to predate the console releases, it is clear that this is yet another title designed for consoles first, PC second.  Although control of the characters is not as problematic as in some console-to-PC conversions (cf. Silent Hill 2 and In Cold Blood), there is still considerable difficulty in precise maneuvering, particularly in the critical fight sequences. There are also too many F keys (as in F4, F5, etc.) to worry about, especially with inventory management. Finally, there is the cursed save game system, reminiscent of the infamous Resident Evil typewriter.  In this case, it’s usually Abdul, your trusty associate. You either have to find him to save or hope that he shows up nearby. Otherwise, it’s repeat the sequence from the last save.

Curse is given one of our new “maybe yes, maybe no” ratings (as in 3 of 5). It’s a darkly beautiful game, with fine acting and sound effects. But also it quickly becomes a game of “find the key, open the door, pull the switch, read the letter, slay the monster, save game (hopefully), find the next key, next letter, etc.” Gameplay is mundane, not especially involving, let alone inspiring. The Victorian setting is interesting, and the gimmick of the Curse moving about is novel, but locations are not especially varied and the storyline is quite dull and predictable.  Clive Barker’s Undying continues, without serious challenge, as the hallmark of survival/horror gaming, at least for the PC—with Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem the best console title of that subgenre I’ve experienced.

I finished Curse in about ten hours, admittedly with the occasional help of a walkthrough. There is no replay value. For console owners (Xbox and PS2 versions are on the way), I would suggest this as a rental. For PC version buyers, Curse comes with a guarded recommendation. Understanding the limitations of weak story, consolitis, and mundane gameplay, you may still opt to try yet another survival/horror game with an impressive atmosphere and novel approach. Remember, I’ve given you fair warning. Please don’t point your own curse in my direction!

What I Liked Most About Curse

  • The Victorian setting and story
  • Excellent graphics
  • Fine voice acting and sound effects
  • “Victorianized” weapons

What I Liked Least About Curse

  • Poor player control in fights
  • Too much F key finding/using
  • Wandering save game points
  • Game soon becomes humdrum The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Asylum Entertainment Publisher: Dreamcatcher Release Date: October 21, 2003 (PC); PS2 and Xbox versions coming soon

Available for: PlayStation 2 Windows Xbox

Four Fat Chicks Links

Player Feedback

Screenshots

Click to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlarge

System Requirements

Windows 95/98/ME/XP Pentium II 600 MHz 128 MB RAM 4X CD-ROM drive Direct 3D compatible video card with true hardware transform and lighting capability DirectX 8.0a compatible sound card 700 MB free hard disk space

Where to Find It

Amazon.com 29.99

Prices/links current as of 11/12/03Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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16 Responses to Screw the Internet

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    God damn, Scout, I’d never heard of this Lanier fellow, but that’s pretty profound.

    Information is not a manufacturable item… as you said, we are making less and less. This is either indicative of a larger-scale societal transformation, or a bad thing. I’m afraid I’m inclined to assumed the latter.

    Thanks!

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Steerpike, that was exactly the argument Lanier was having with callers on the BBC. Lanier was all fatalistic about society’s drop in real productivity while his opponents claimed that this was a huge transformation and that he was just too old to grasp the coolness of it all. If you notice, the web address of that first Lanier link is well.com. I mean, that is old! The Well?

    Lanier’s thoughts were pretty much echoed by David Simon, one of the creators of The Wire. Here he speaks with Bill Moyers about the fate of paid journalism in the face of the web.

  • Spike

    I’ve read many criticisms of Facebook et. al.  I’ve also read contradictions of those criticisms, namely, that social sites are making people more connected than ever.  I think that that connectedness is an illusion.

    For several months at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 my daughter badgered me to join FB.  I could connect with her and some of her friends that I know as well as renew old acquaintances with some of her friend’s mothers.  I finally signed up so she’d quit the badgering. I used to check in every day to see what daughter and friends were saying because if I didn’t she’d ask if I saw her post, or a friend’s post. 

    What I’ve learned is this:

    1.  “Karen Likes John’s photo (or post)” IS NOT communication.

    2.  The reason I lost contact with some of these “friends” in the first place is that we no longer had anything in common.

    3.  I am bombarded with so many ads in so many places that I can do without more.  My policy is to never click on ads on FB or on many other sites. 

    4.  While FB’s original mission was connectedness/communication, I think it has become “Let’s make as much money from these fools as we can.”  “Wanna have gobs of fun playing a free game on FB?”  That game is gonna cost ya big, folks. 

    5.  Social sites are just more places where your personal info can be stolen.  There’s enough risk out there as it is.  Additional risk is not providing any valuable payoff for me.

    6.  Why do I want to “friend” a certain handbag manufacturer?  Why do I want to take a quiz that tells me what my personality is?  FB content providers tell you up front that if you click the link to take their quiz (goes for other types of content as well) you are giving them permission to access your profile info.  That’s ok.  I’ll also give you my SSN, bank account number and the key to my front door.  Not.

    7.  Don’t even get me started on the number of people who start an account in a pet’s name, and even have the pets making friends and posting.

    “…he was just too old to grasp the coolness of it all.”

    No, it’s just that most of us get to the age when we demand a bit of wheat with our chaff.

    At 38 my daughter is older than the average demographic of social sites although I know that that demographic is skewing up.  She seems to be cooling on FB.  Some of her 221 friends are as well.  Many of them do want some wheat.  When more cooling has taken place I will unjoin.

    I wonder, though, what new fad will come along when FB, Twitter and others run their course?  MySpace, anyone?

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    My favorite line from the BBC interview was when Lanier was comparing MySpace and Facebook. He admitted that MySpace had some eye gougingly bad pages but said that he liked the “strangeness” of personalities that you get with it. With Facebook, he claimed that it was like looking at a tax form. A boring, watered down, bland presentation of people.

    I joined Facebook almost exactly a year ago. Apart from sparking up a new friendship with a very dear buddy, I’ve gotten about zero back from it. I sort of read with bemusement the activities of people I hardly know and could care less about. And when you consider how much information the devs harvest there…it’s scary. Lanier claims that the information is so far worthless to the investors and that the whole thing has become a sort useless ritual serving no purpose. He claimed that Google’s ads on the other hand will probably turn out to be the greatest advertising model ever created. He also thinks Google should stop before it’s too late but says they probably won’t. Just a glance at the side bar reveals about 4 ads for advertising agencies. Heh.

  • lokimotive

    Has anybody read Anti-Oedipus? I’m slogging my way through it (the third attempt I believe), and Deleuze and Gauttari’s ideas seem relevant to this in a way that I’m not sure I can articulate. This probably has something to do with a conversation I was eavesdropping on that, coincidentally, mentioned a lot of Deleuze and Gauttari’s theories. Someone was talking about another theorist (whose name I didn’t catch) who was defending “Generation Y” essentially. The argument went that Generation Y is an example of a “de-Oedipalized” cultural group (that’s Anti-Oedipus jargon, just stay with me). Apparently this meant that they made connections in a different manner than other generations, the idea of bricollage was brought up and things were generally mired in a lot of reasons why I don’t have my Masters in English. What I got from it was this Generation Y shoots out connections everywhere and attempts to make up a whole idea with them as opposed to relying on predefined pathways. In Deleuze and Guattari’s language: the schizo as opposed to Oedipus. In language that probably makes sense: Peer to Peer as opposed to client-server.

    So, of course, no one’s really right. I’m skeptical of the idea that Generation Y (full disclosure: I’m 29 so I’m part of that group) has enacted some sort of paradigm shift in how to operate in social systems, but facebook has changed how I connect with people. Then again, it’s not like I don’t value face to face communication.

    The future is somewhere in between. I’m really not cynical enough to believe that we are at the end times of civilized society because of Web 2.0. Instead society will change and stay the same because that’s what it does. Facebook is not the future; it’s probably a rung up the ladder though.

  • kaythomas

    To me, Facebook and Twitter are 0’s. They are not worth my time.  I do not care what someone I know or don’t know did a half hour ago or will do next.  I have met up with people on facebook I had lost contact with.  But, in truth, the reason I had lost contact was I was not that interested in staying in contact.

    I think for many people the Facebook/Twitter world is great.  For me it has nothing to offer. 
    kay

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Tap has an automated device that twits… tweets… whatever whenever someone posts a new article. Just in case it draws some visitors.

    To be honest, though, I’m on Kay’s side of the fence, I don’t understand Twitter and I don’t understand why it’s so popular. I barely care what I’m doing from moment to moment, why should anyone else?

    I don’t get Facebook either, though I’m a member to keep track of all the girls who wouldn’t give me the time of day in high school.

  • Lewis B

    Tweets are great for giving me snippets of news.  If I like what I’ve read in the short paragraph tweets give, then I will visit the main page for that tweet. (Very good for following world news, favourite columnists, etc.)

    However, reading tweets from people such as “Just woke up, Madonna is giving me a massage while I shave my nuts” is not my idea of a good read.

  • Toger

    I use tweets the same way Lewis does. Of the people/things I follow, if the tweet is interesting I’ll follow the link to read the entire article. I follow fairly intelligent people, so I’m not subjected to the idiocy of “Just brushed my teeth while sitting on toilet”.

  • Gregg B

    @loki: I’m afraid I’ve not heard of them. I’m a couple of years below you so that puts me in the same Generation Y as well. I read through a few of those links Scout posted as well as a few more on Lanier’s new book “You Are Not a Gadget” and it took me a fair while to get to the crux of what he is saying and he has a lot to say, most of which I find very confusing.

    As a graphic designer the whole “everything is becoming advertising” thing has been bothering me for years. The incessant barrage of advertising is like fingernails on the chalkboard of my soul, which sort of makes me a hypocrite. After all the years of tuning my art and design skillz my creative abilities have amounted to nothing more than crafting pretty ads that sell things. Non of it speaks any truth or has any sort of ‘beauty’; it’s just stone cold mechanical capitalism. Granted there are ads out there that are beautiful, clever and visionary but the front line stuff is as dull as it gets. I’m sure this isn’t strictly what he’s getting at but it’s definitely something that irks me in relation to Scout’s last remark.

    Anyway, I remember Twitter just exploding in what seemed like the space of a week and I still can’t fathom the allure of it aside from providing a direct stream of consciousness from famous folk to their ravenous fans. I wish I’d thought of it to be honest. I can see the creators sitting around a table staring at Facebook and then saying “I know! We make a website that’s just about status updates! You can even update them with your mobile phone!”.

    With regards to Twitter news snippets, unless it’s for a phone, I don’t see the point because RSS feeds do a great job. At present too great; I simply can’t keep up with my subscriptions. There’s too much information on this super highway.

  • Jen

    Twitter is officially the dumbest thing ever.

    That said, it looks like I will have to be the official “tweeter” for my day job before too long. I can’t wait! (roll eyes)

  • xtal

    I’m with everyone else here. I’m glad to say I’ve never signed up for Facebook; I fear that if I ever had I would have long ago died from loss of brain cells due to reading moronic status updates. It’s as Kay said: ninety-five per cent of people with whom you lose contact are probably no longer in your life because you have nothing left in common. And echoing Steerpike’s comment, me eating toast and jam on a Sunday morning watching Fawlty Towers is not interesting, not to me. Why the hell would anyone else give a shit?

    Twitter I signed up for about a year ago, not really understanding what it was. I now understand it…but don’t care to use it often. I have made 58 tweets over that year. I suspect for some that is a daily or weekly average. It’s just Facebook status updates without all the drunken photographs. I admit it can be mildly useful for following, say, a news site. Usually when I hop on my twitter (once every two weeks??) it reminds me that I should read The Onion more often. That’s about it.

    Let’s see… looking at the actual humans I follow, um… Wil Wheaton is happy that the LA Kings have won 9 games in a row, my sister-in-law thought our dinner tonight was “delicious,” and Kevin Smith’s batteries are recharged … or something.

    Wow, my life is already getting better!

    p.s.  <—– Gen Y'er (can we call ourselves that?) and proud that when I Google my own name a real estate company pops up.

  • Fraser

    Twitter is exactly as useless as the person who’s writing it. If someone is telling you boring shit over Twitter, it’s the person wasting your time, not the delivery channel.

    MySpace is the same, but it seems more intrinsically garbage because for some reason almost everyone who used it was an intellectual embryo with a fetish for unreadable hyperneon text on top of garish uninteresting photos. Facebook’s great trick is that it prevents you from realising that most of your friends would make a brutally hideous homepage for themselves if they could.

    That’s the argument against the whole of this post: the internet isn’t evil, but the people who use it might be. It’s people who make business models successful; people who make money flow to advertisers instead of artists, by buying into the advertising.

    This has been a pretty didactic post, so let me compensate by saying VIDEOGAMES WOOOOOOO!!!

  • Gregg B

    Good point about not blaming the delivery channel Fraser. I seem to recall Lanier saying that he preferred the personality that MySpace has over Facebook despite its Craptastic Pages of Illegibility. I’m trying to think of something intelligent to follow that up with but my brain is failing me at the moment, so…

    VIDEOGAMES WOOOOOO!!!

  • Jason Venter

    Fraser, I really loved your following comment:

    “Facebook’s great trick is that it prevents you from realising that most of your friends would make a brutally hideous homepage for themselves if they could.”

    I think that may just be one of the most hilariously true comments I’ve read in a comments area on any video game web site ever.  That sounds overly dramatic, I know, but I actually mean it.  Kudos to you!

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Yeah but don’t you miss all the ugliness of MySpace? All those hideous pages at least had personality or what Lanier called the “strangeness of the person” to them.

    I actually don’t agree with a lot of what Lanier says esp “the hive mind must die” stuff. But I do think he is right about the spirit shriveling blandness of Facebook.

    I also suspect that Twitter is going to be around for a while. It will be more and more influential. People are simply not as willing to ingest huge amounts of information in the form of pages of text anymore. The delivery systems that succeed will be those that can communicate a lot of information in a short amount of time. Most days we want “glimpses” or “snapshots” not total immersion. Lewis, Toger and Fraser are correct in that you get out of it what you decide to follow.

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