Ankh: Curse of the Scarab King (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Anyone who was around in the glorious 16 Bit days will be well aware just how popular point and click adventures were, and titles like Monkey Island and the other wonderful Lucasarts adventures were must haves. The genre had a slight resurrection in the late 90s when Revolution unleashed the intelligent and humorous Broken Sword series (which we believe will soon see a DS release). To bring things up to the present day, it's no secret that gamers have always seen the DS as an ideal platform for adventures and thanks to European developers, we are starting to see some trickle through. Ankh has already been released on the Mac and PC where the series has been very successful but this is its first outing on the DS. Quite an ambitious project for the handheld perhaps, but what's it like?

Gameplay

The game follows the plight of Assil: the bored and frustrated son of the architect who built the Sphinx. We join the game's main character as he enjoys an evening in a pyramid after stealing his father's keys. Everything appears to be going well until he disturbs a mummy, only to receive a death curse. You'd imagine that sorting this out would be something of a priority but, after arriving home and discovering the missing keys, his father banishes Assil to his room and it's here where your adventure begins. Exploring is simple enough and you can interact with things in different ways thanks to the icons at the bottom of the screen. You can view, take and use items as well as combine them by simply dragging one over the other. Most of the time though you'll simply walk around and talk to the various characters. This is all done through a kind of multiple-choice, where you guide the various conversations to a conclusion usually to gain an item or make a character do something.

This all works well and the majority of the gameplay is intuitive and generally easy to work through. Unfortunately, and as with all games of this nature, you do get the odd puzzle which will have you completely stumped. You could argue that this is poor game design but while no one wants a game that offers no challenge at all, adventures still need to be grounded in reality, a concept which last year's Touch Detective appeared to miss completely.

Controls

While the developers have allowed you to utilize the more traditional controls to move Assil around, you are far better off sticking with the stylus.

Graphics

Visually the game is a bit of a mixed bag and where attempts have been made to keep the original intact, the DS' hardware simply doesn't allow for that. Instead the original 3D adventure is now a 2D affair, which while this has worked in the past, it does make some of the objects you must interact with hard to decipher. Everything else is heavily compressed and while you do get a number of cut screens they appear grainy and washed out but still much better than static cut screens would be.

Sound

The audio is one of the most impressive aspects of Ankh and the developers have included an incredible amount of spoken dialogue from the various players. Unfortunately this is all compressed and some of the original German humor is 'lost in translation' but that doesn't stop it from being engaging. Elsewhere the music and sound effects suit the on-screen action but are somewhat forgettable.

Dual screen

The whole reason why this type of game is becoming so popular again is all down to the stylus and it's this single control method, which can be used throughout the game both for movement and using items. It's especially useful when combining items or when you get a little lost, attempting this 'trial and error' gameplay with more traditional controls would have been a much more drawn out process.

Final comments

It's always a bit of a risk taking a home computer title and transferring it to a handheld and while Ankh does have its drawbacks it's still an enjoyable adventure. The most impressive thing is that all of the dialogue is spoken and most of the cut-screens have remained intact. Added to this you do yet a fair bit of adventure for your money and Ankh is just as bizarre, in its puzzle creation, as the original. So you are probably thinking, just what are the drawbacks? Unfortunately, it's with the gameplay itself and the new 2D viewpoint makes for some frustrating moments rendering the game much more difficult overall. It's still an enjoyable romp though, just don't expect to be playing it more than once.

Pro: Impressive FMV and Speech.
Con: Some Items Difficult to Find, Can be Trial and Error Gaming.
Final score: 6.7

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