EGYPT 1156 B.C.: TOMB OF THE PHARAOH

Experience Ancient Egypt As Never Before.

Prepare yourself for an adventure in a 3D world, in a time and place full of intrigue and mystery.

You are Ramose, an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. Your father has been accused of stealing treasures from a royal tomb. Unless you can show the Pharaoh proof of innocence, your father will be executed and his name erased from history. Live everyday life in Egypt over 3,000 years ago, as you experience the splendor, the passion and the mystery of a very special moment in time. 

Save your father by proving his innocent.

You have not time to lose.

Go now... into the tomb of the Pharaoh!

• Encounter fascinating characters.
• Investigations, Puzzles, and Challenges...
• Over 25 hours of compelling gameplay.
• Accurately detailed cinematic scenes.
• Visually spectacular 3D graphics and animation.

~ from the back of the original US box

 

Cryo Interactive occupied a strange but wonderful corner of late-90s adventure gaming. While the genre was falling out of favour as LucasArts ditched the SCUMM engine to favour the Star Wars machine, the French publisher decided to stake their future on educational tourism. Their historical adventures became lavish digital field trips, creating painstaking recreations of places and eras few games had dared touch. The first in this vein was Versailles 1685 (reviewed on this very site) invited you to wander the royal halls of the titular palace. China: The Forbidden City - their third - opened the doors to the Imperial compound. Their second - Egypt 1156 B.C.: Tomb of the Pharaoh - was the one that stuck around in people's minds. Maybe Ancient Egypt simply has better marketing than Louis XIV. Maybe people never stopped wanting to poke around forbidden tombs. Whatever the reason, Cryo returned twice more, and while the sequels remain commercially available today, this original remains a dusty artefact almost lost to history.

The setup sounds suitably dramatic. You are Ramose, son of a worker accused of stealing treasures from the tomb of Seti I. Unless evidence is uncovered within three days, your father will be executed and - in true Ancient Egyptian fashion - erased from memory entirely. It's a simple premise, little more than an excuse to explore the ancient settlements, but it still weaves together the fiction and the fact neatly portraying Egypt as an actual civilisation than the myth we're often told. You move through villages, temples and burial sites during the reign of Ramses III in 1156 BC, seeing not just monuments but the people maintaining them. Cryo clearly wanted this to feel authentic, and the manual practically apologises in advance for taking creative liberties, describing the game as an "evocation rather than a reconstruction". That distinction matters. The mystery itself is fiction, but the world around it constantly tries to ground itself in real archaeology and contemporary understanding of the period. You can feel the developers resisting the temptation to turn everything into curses and secret chambers.

The panorama of Egypt lets you visit a bunch of locations, but only one at a time (left).

An absorbing game of Senet, the real-life board game from Ancient Egyptian (right).

Visually, this was Cryo operating in familiar territory. Egypt runs on the Omni3D engine, their pre-rendered panoramic system that a lot of companies attempted at the time. It doesn't quite replace a fully 3D environment that would be years away from attempting something with this level of detail, but for the time it more than suited its purpose. Movement has a fluidity many similar engines lacked; rotating around chambers and slowly taking in painted walls creates a convincing sense of place without having you wrestle with the mouse. If you find it's still a little sensitive, there's even an option in the menu to adjust navigation speed. The downside is that exploration often turns into forensic hunts for clickable hotspots. Ancient Egyptian builders may have hidden entrances cleverly, but I doubt they disguised them as effectively as Cryo disguised interactive objects. It took me an eternity to realise there's a wooden plank near the entrance of the first tomb that's absolutely essential to go any further. Add in lighting that seems determined to simulate the darkness of actual torch conditions and finding anything that isn't obvious is a chore. Moreover, while the location graphics are atmospheric and inviting (if not always visible), character models that resemble animated sacks of mashed potato. Like many other Cryo products, the visuals are wildly inconsistent.

Controls themselves are straightforward enough. When hovering over a hotspot, you mouse icon will change to indicate what you can do, be it conversation, examination, object collection and close inspection. Your inventory appears with a right-click, listing all that you're carrying in a strip of icons on the bottom of the screen. Not all inventory icons are obvious, however. Immediately to the left of your object list is a question mark. Pick up an object and click on this for a closer look. The swirl on the far left takes you to the main menu where you can save or load a game. The asterisk on the far right is a little more unusual. It will log every environmental close-up you've found and direct you to the in-game encyclopaedia to provide some historical context of what you're seeing. It's all perfectly functional. The trouble is what the designers did with it. Progress often depends on exhausting locations before moving on, because once certain areas are left behind, that's it, there's no going back. Movement through locations is linear and tied to strict historical access rules. Admirable from a historical standpoint, slightly maddening as game design. You can stumble into unwinnable states simply by behaving like a curious player. Adventure games should reward exploration, not punish it by forcing a reload.

Filling out this parchment is key to figuring out the real culprit (left).

Add to it by searching for clues. Miss one, and you'll find yourself in an unwinnable situation (right).

And then comes the moment every adventure gamer dreads; the action sequence. At one point you become the target of a hidden archer and must retaliate with a boomerang. It sounds exciting until you actually attempt it. Somewhere within the murky scenery is a tiny visual clue indicating where the attacker is hiding, and the game expects you to spot it before becoming a pin cushion. This was the one moment I truly got stuck in the game, and I felt it was down to poor design than ineptitude on my part. Other mini-games fare better, and one of the best is the recreation of Senet, the ancient Egyptian board game. This game dates back thousands of years and was popular enough to appear painted inside tombs and buried alongside the dead. You control cone-shaped pieces while the computer takes the round markers, following reconstructed rules based on surviving evidence. Movement is determined not by dice, but by throwing decorated sticks, spaces can be blocked out and exact throws can remove pieces from the board. It's not the most complex of games, but its inclusion is very much a welcome one.

What ultimately saves Egypt from becoming just another forgettable adventure game is its obsession with history. There's a surprisingly dense encyclopaedia available alongside the main game that covers all aspect of ancient Egypt. The documentation system allows topics to link into one another, encouraging you to drift from one subject to the next until you suddenly realise you've spent twenty minutes reading about funerary practices instead of solving the crime your meant to be investigating. This historical context is often necessary to understand some of the puzzles. The game of Senet is described in full, and knowing the structure of hieroglyphic writing is a must. It's a shame not all of it is signposted well. 

The included encyclopaedia is full of knowledge about Ancient Egypt.

Perhaps some of its contents will help in puzzle solving too.

The sequels would eventually refine the formula. Egypt II: The Heliopolis Prophecy and The Egyptian Prophecy: The Fate of Ramses both remain available to buy today and, in my view, improve on the original in almost every meaningful way. Their stories are stronger, progression less fragile and pacing considerably smoother. They still carry the flaws that Cryo became known for - graphics over gameplay, style over substance - but there's still an undeniable charm that can only come from them. 

Egypt 1156 B.C.: Tomb of the Pharaoh is one of those games that earns admiration more readily than affection. As an adventure game, it's uneven, awkward and occasionally infuriating. As a historical experience, it remains oddly special. Cryo often aimed higher than what they could deliver and sometimes forgot about entertainment altogether in the process, but there's still something admirable about a game willing to drag players through three thousand years of history. Not every journey through time has to be a tonne of fun. Sometimes it just has to make you feel like you’ve been somewhere impossible. For all its faults, Cryo did do that.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses dgVoodoo to run on modern systems with IMG Drive Lite to mount the CD ISO. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 11.

File Size: 347 Mb.  Install Size: 435 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

Download


Egypt 1156 B.C.: Tomb of the Pharaoh is © Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Canal+Multimedia & Cryo Interactive Entertainment
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

Like this? Try These...