THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE PHARAOH

Deep below a mining site in Alexandria, ancient Egyptian tombs lay undisturbed for centuries. During excavations a mysterious heiroglyphic chest is discovered and a terrible chain of events is unleashed. As the mining company's agent, it becomes your mission to save the Pharaoh's tomb and its treasures from the deadliest of enemies.

• A suspense-packed adventure starring Malcolm McDowell as your relentless adversary
• 50 spine-tingling puzzles to solve in a stunning point-and-click environment
• 50 different mystical locations including a WWII military base, an eerie phosphate mine and, of course, the Pharaoh's tomb
• Over 50 minutes of cinematic sequence with dynamic sound effects from the audio team behind the Mortal Kombat film

~ from the back of the box

After taking us Through the Eyes of the Monster in Frankenstein, Amazing Media would tackle another classic creature of the night; The Mummy. Released in 1996, The Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh would be packaged with their previous game making for quite the adventurous double bill, though I'd argue its Myst-inspired gameplay and Egyptian setting is truly appealing in its own right.

Instead of Tim Curry's mad take on a mad scientist, the big name celeb in The Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh is Malcolm McDowell. As Stuart Davenport, an on-location manager of a mining expedition in the middle of an unspecified Egyptian dessert, he's as gloriously campy as Curry's Frankenstein but his presence is a welcome one. He will occasionally pop up as you explore the base of operations with a wordy passive-aggressive dig at you. He is not the only cast member either. There are unrequited love interests, employees with an interest in the mystical and scientists who are only there to die horribly.

Puzzles are logical for the most part. Fixing a generator requires basic handyman skills (left)
and opening a safe requires sleuthing around its owner's cabin (right).

The premise is fairly basic. You play as Michael Cameron, a representative for the National Mining Company who has been sent to their Egyptian site after they have been experiencing setbacks. An ancient chest has been found pointing to a tomb nearby. Not long after, their equipment has been sabotaged and the workforce refuse to set foot in the mine thinking it cursed. You are there to discover what's going on.

You arrive at night, the many warehouses and buildings shrouded in darkness. Most are the area is free to explore, though you might want to introduce yourself to the notable staff then head to sleep. As you have a nightmare of a bald-headed man misquoting a line from Night of the Living Dead ("I'll be waiting for you, Cameron" replaces "I'm coming to get you, Barbara" with the exact same infection), a scientist is murdered inside the mines and the electrical generator has been vandalised. It is your first goal to restore power, but it does require a lot of adventure-game convolution to do it. You can just get the keys to shack housing the generator. You have to steal them from Davenport's desk. You can't just get a spanner, you have to go to a specific warehouse where you must put boxes on a fork lift so you can lift it up to cut down another box so you can swing to an upper platform to get a grappling hook to enter the upper window of a specific hanger where a toolbox containing the spanner resides. It looks like this mining company doesn't employ handymen.

A guard blocks you to the mine entrance. Drag your overly-large ID card over him to get past.

All joking aside, this isn't as bad as it might seem. The game is relatively easy and I only really got stuck when navigating. The static-screen snapshots aren't always logical making it easy to lose your bearings. Some hot areas are also easily missed, such as that hanger window where the spanner is. The actual puzzles are logical and make sense, such as filling up an oil canister or opening a safe. Some innocuous actions may eventually lead to game overs. The code to that safe is found on a bookmark which you can add to your inventory. Don't take it with you, though, as you will face the consequences for your sneaky ways. Just save often and you'll be good to go most of the time.

I did find the way the inventory works a little awkward. Your backpack appears whenever you hover the cursor over the bottom right of the screen. Here, you can click on the up and down arrows to cycle through what you've stuffed in there. Click on the icon and it will then appear next to the hand-shaped cursor on the main screen. These icons are huge, obscuring much of the scenery. You'll have to pay attention to the little controllable hand which will animate if you're hovering over the correct hotspot. On the plus side, it does mean a lot of detail can be easily seen for each item. This is particularly useful when you're dealing with a bunch of floppy disks, each with their contents easily readable on the label.

Printing out the mine maps (left) are probably a good thing if you want
to find your way around the massive multi-level maze of mines (right)

Generally, I found the graphics to be a mixed bag. You've spend most of your time at the base surrounded by similar looking buildings and sand as far as the eye can see. It's especially dull during the opening moments when you have little guidance or plot beats to hook you in. Coded in QuickTime, the actors are a little more pixelated than their backgrounds but they fit their surroundings nicely. It is only when you reach the tomb itself when I found myself to be wowed by the visuals. The audio, however, was top notch throughout adding to the spooky ambience and uncertain mystery before you.

In the end, I feel like The Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh is both better and worse than Frankenstein. I enjoyed the location of a gothic castle more than a military base and Time Curry will forever be the GOAT, but the overarching story and selection of puzzles found in this desert was more interesting than its predecessor (mine maze not withstanding). Both are great choices for adventure game fans, but I doubt either will feature in their top-10.
 

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox running Microsoft Windows 3.1 to get the game working on modern systems. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 576 Mb.  Install Size: 772 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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The Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh is © Amazing Media & Interplay
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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