The Cameron Files: Pharaoh’s Curse Review

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            The Cameron Files: Pharaoh’s Curse

Review by JenDecember 2002

Plain vanilla. The antithesis of “groundbreaking.”  Same ol’ same ol’. This is a difficult review to write because there’s really not a whole lot to say about Pharaoh’s Curse.

This lackluster effort is a followup to Loch Ness (released in North America as The Cameron Files: Secret at Loch Ness, or something like that—after all, why use two words when 20 will do?), and the events of Pharaoh’s Curse follow but are almost completely unrelated to those in Loch Ness.

As the game starts, Our Hero, globetrotting private detective Alan Parker Cameron, is plunked down in 1930s Cairo (that’s in Egypt, you know—real original location for an adventure game, huh?) to keep a date with Moira MacFarley, winsome young thing from Loch Ness. The hotel’s deskman sends Our Hero off to a museum of Egyptian antiquities per the Girl’s instructions, but when Our Hero arrives there, said Girl is nowhere in evidence.  So what does Our Hero do? Why, snoop, of course, and pick up anything that his pixel hunt happens to uncover.

Eventually he unearths a paper-thin plot dealing with Nazis and magical artifacts, evil mummies (mummy, I mean; there’s only one), and … well, that’s about it. In a race against time, Our Hero must solve the mystery and … not stop World War II? Okay, he’s really just retracing the footsteps of the Girl and trying to get, shall we say, closer? to her, and meanwhile those pesky Nazis keep getting in his way. The mummy rears his ugly head every once in a while to throw in the obligatory element of danger, with the inevitable Wanadoo-style timed sequences that result in numerous instant deaths for the ever-resilient-courtesy-of-frequent-saves Mr. Cameron.

Puzzles are run-of-the-mill inventory-usage brain teasers. At least there are no mazes this time around. That underwater maze in Loch Ness was a fun-sucker to be sure, and I’m glad the developers paid heed to the plaintive wails of the players and ditched that stupid idea. The puzzles are actually fairly organic to the game and some are pretty creative; others obviously are nothing more than filler, though.

Interface is pure point-and-click. A left click interacts with onscreen things or persons, and a right click brings up the inventory.  Inside the inventory, besides the items you pick up, are a wallet where all of the papers you steal end up and another folio of sorts where you can replay the game’s cutscenes in case you missed something due to an untimely musical crescendo or a howler monkey in the same room. There are no subtitles, unfortunately. Save game slots are limited to 16 (I think), but the amount proved to be more than sufficient. If you are a Dramamine junkie, be forewarned: this is one of those games where the cursor is affixed to the center of the screen and everything revolves around it.

This is not a difficult game if you are well-versed in adventuring arcana. New players might be put off by some of the nonsensical devices employed, but old hands will find themselves on familiar ground—we’ve all trodden it enough times in the past that for us this can be viewed as a, well, retread. Sometimes there are far too many locations that must be revisited in order to perform minute cursor-sweeping inspections for that one teeny item you’ve overlooked, particularly in the museum.

The graphics are passable. They look nice and are clear and well laid out. They are pretty lifeless, though. A big chunk of the game takes place on a Nile riverboat, and while you’re outside looking at the water, you hear the gentle waves lapping on the sides of the boat … but the water doesn’t move. You hear birds in the background, but you never see anything in the skies. After you finish talking to the barman, he will go back to what he was doing, and then he will just be there … moving his arm up and down, up and down, up and down, bobbing his head up and down, up and down … every time you go back. And that’s if you’re lucky. Usually there is no one at all in evidence anywhere you go. People always talk about those lonely first-person Myst clones—this is a lonely first-person I-don’t-know-what,-maybe-Wanadoo?  clone.

The software itself installed and ran well, although I had to deal with a couple of minor glitches. I did the full install on my Windows XP laptop with only a 4 MB onboard video chip; at first the game wouldn’t run at all. But I looked at all of the shortcuts put on the Start menu and saw one called “Configure Pharaoh’s Curse” that allowed me to switch to software rendering. After that, I had a couple of hard crashes outside the game, and when Windows restarted and did that disk-checking thing, it repaired a couple of Pharaoh’s Curse files. I don’t know what was changed or why, but both times the game, and the rest of my computer, ran fine afterward.

Pharaoh’s Curse is nothing more than another cookie-cutter game to fill the Cryo vacuum. I could always go off on another rant about how “the genre is ripe for innovation and so why are we continually force-fed this kind of tripe,” but I’ll let my rotten egg do my talking for me. There is nothing inherently wrong with Pharaoh’s Curse, it’s just that it’s all, and I do mean all, been done before and I was bored the whole time I was playing. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Galilea Publisher: Dreamcatcher Release Date: October 2002

Available for: Windows

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System Requirements

Windows 98/2000/ME/XP PII 233 MHz (500 MHz recommended) 64 MB RAM 16X CD-ROM drive DirectX compatible video card (16 MB 3D accelerated recommended) DirectX compatible sound card Mouse

Where to Find It

Links 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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14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

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