Cameron Files 2: Pharaoh's Curse

Rating:
Summary: DreamCatcher Rocks again!
Review: Cameron Files II has proved to be the best Adventure game since Syberia!
I love this game, graphics, playability and suspense is what kept me interested.

Rating:
Summary: So Close, and Yet...
Review: Chicago Detective Alan Parker Cameron Returns in _The Pharaoh's Curse_ to help his distant cousin Moira MacFarley out of another scrape. It seems she's gone to Egypt as the artist for an archaeological dig and strange things are happening. When Cameron shows up, she's disappeared. The search to find her and figure out what's going on will lead from Cairo to the Valley of the Kings, with plenty of action along the way.

This second Cameron Files game started out really well. It was immediately apparent that more planning and energy had gone into it than went into _The Secret of Loch Ness_. The graphics were quite good, with just enough detail. There were still a lot of things that you couldn't look at closely, but there was enough that you could look at that it seemed to balance out pretty well. Navigation was more direct and less confusing than in the previous game. You still couldn't go everywhere right off, but at least there were logical reasons for this -- e.g., you had to find out the place existed, or had to find a key. You also weren't stuck in a particular area until you had solved everything there, as happened often in _Loch Ness_, so the game had overall a greater feeling of freedom of movement, which I appreciated. The character animations were pretty darn good and the voice acting was articulate -- a good thing, since there are still no subtitles The music was quite good and not overused; most scenes had minimal sound F/x. The Save Game feature has also improved, although you still have a limited number of slots in which to save (16).

_The Pharaoh's Curse_ is a first person game with numerous third person cut scenes. There is minimal NPC interaction. I actually found this refreshing, as I do not particularly enjoy games where solving the puzzles depends on numerous conversations that go on forever. There were some converstations, but most of the information you needed turned up in the form of documents. The puzzles were largely inventory-based. There was one riddle, but no mechanical puzzles. There were also quite a number of timed activities and this is where the game really fell down for me.

In general, the puzzles were VERY easy. I wish game programmers would take a clue from the designers of Myst and Gabriel Knight and learn to come up with puzzles that are challenging in their own right and not because of some contrived difficulty. TPC fortunately did not rely on the infamous pixel hunting strategy -- hotspots were clearly visible all the time. But it did do things like not allow you to pick up a few inventory items until you knew what they were needed for and provide misleading clues, most often by way of Cameron's comments to himself. These were thankfully fewer than in SoLN, but just as annoying. Several times they seemed planned to lead you into disaster; the rest of the time they were just inane and unnecessary. The one time it would have been helpful for him to make a comment, he didn't.

There were also a couple puzzles that were, well, unnecessary to the game and did not advance play in any way; it didn't matter whether you solved them or not, as they mainly existed to give you information that you didn't need or easily got from some other source. A couple of times I found myself thinking, "What the heck was that about?" after some inventory item that I hadn't used mysteriously disappeared. And when I figured out what it was about, it was like, "well, that didn't make any difference!"

But the worst thing was the abundance of timed puzzles. I can't say it enough, I HATE timed puzzles in adventure games[.] This is not what adventure gamers play for and they are not challenging, just ANNOYING! Two things in particular made the timed puzzles in TPC worse than usual: in many cases they did not give you a reasonable amount of time to do what you needed to do, and the timer did not stop when you opened your inventory, as is usual in this type of game. PLus, often during the timed sequence, for some unknown reason my mouse cursor became spasmodic and difficult to control. A couple of the sequences were straightforward enough -- when the timer started you know what you had to do and could just do it with a click or two. But a couple were truly horrible, with lots of contrived roadblocks. This is another game that lost a star in my rating for an annoying and disappointing endgame, which featured a number of timed sequences one after another that were almost impossible to get through even when you knew what you were supposed to do, simply because you were not given enough time. I don't mind dying once or twice in a game, but dying over and over again when you know the solution really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The ending was abrupt and disatisfying, leaving a number of loose ends; I would have liked to have seen a little movie with some more resolution.

_The Pharaoh's Curse_ took about 20 hours to complete: a nice length for a game of its kind. I really liked about the first 75% of it; the plot was pretty good, the locations were absorbing, and there was a certain amount of humour, like the Indiana Jones references scattered throughout the beginning. Strange as it may seem, I give this game high marks for making the title character bald. I wish the puzzles could show the same kind of inventiveness as some of the rest of the game.

Definitely worth playing, but prepare to be annoyed at the end.

Rating:
Summary: Buyer beware!
Review: I could not even get this game to install. After about an hour perusing The Adventure Company website, and doing everything they recommended, I called their tech support. They gave me about 5 minutes of their time, asking questions, saying "Try this, try that..." before giving up. They recommended I contact the seller for a refund. They were not willing to do anything further until I sent them the disc for "testing" -- to Canada, at my own expense. If you do buy this game, SAVE YOUR RECEIPT! There is a good chance you will need to return it.

Rating:
Summary: Pharaoh's Curse Fun
Review: I enjoyed the game. The indoor and outdoor scenery was excellent. I also enjoyed the music and the characters. I felt however, the game was too short and was disappointed when it ended.

Rating:
Summary: not quite as good as cameron-loch ness
Review: I think the graphics and music were a little better than loch ness but i think the storyline of loch ness is a little better.Just like the first one it would have been a little better if all the doors could have been entered.Both cameron files in general were good and i hope they make a cameron files 3.

Rating:
Summary: What went wrong?
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed the first 'Cameron Files' game. It was atmospheric, the characters were quirky, and interesting, and the story line was reasonably consistent. It wasn't the best Adventure game I've ever played, but it gave me a few evenings of harmless amusement.
As for the sequel......
It seems incomplete. The story line has gaps, there are characters who appear, contribute nothing to the plot, then disappear (What was the telepathic Russian countess all about, for heaven's sake?). There are puzzles which lead nowhere - like the 'coded' message found on an Enigma machine, which turned out to be a depressingly simple cipher and which wasn't used later in the game. The settings were bland and uninteresting; the designers could have learned something from Riddle of the Sphinx.
I can't help suspecting that it was rushed out in time for Christmas?
Was it the worst Adventure game I've played? No. I reserve that honour for 'Jekyll and Hyde'. It was a close second, though.

Rating:
Summary: Cameron Files 2:Pharaoh's Curse
Review: It is a very good detective type game. It keeps you going back for more. I love it.

Rating:
Summary: Not as inventive as the first Cameron Files
Review: Our hard-boiled detective, Alan Cameron, goes to Cairo to help his old friend Moira McFarley with an archeological problem. Not surprisingly, Cameron's task involves pyramids, mummies, and pharaohs. Cameron turns in his 30s suit and hat for an Indiana-Jones outdoor outfit, complete with the scarf tied around his neck. You will spend your time tracking the curse of the recently awakened evil pharaoh, and at the same time find Moira and redeem her from the pharaoh's grasp.

An interesting story, admittedly, but unfortunately it is precisely this storyline that was a disappointment for me. What I liked about Secrets at Loch Ness (the first Cameron Files installment) was the 30s film-noir/Peter Gunn feel to it. It is rather difficult to obtain that same feeling with Cameron looking like Indiana Jones and kicking up sand and pharaohs. Perhaps Moira McFarley is not necessary as a motivating factor for Cameron. He is a P.I., after all: should he not have some other cases to solve?

I fear this sequel is attempting to extend the Cameron Files saga while relying on the fairly safe recently-awakened-pharaohs storyline. There are a few stories that explore Scottish myths (Beyond Atlantis is one), so Secrets at Loch Ness is not unique in that regard; but the Egypt/pharaoh story is rather common. And finding a 30s P.I. in a pyramid is just a little too much of a stretch. I put a premium on discovery in the adventure games that I play; there just wasn't much here to surprise me--there'll be hieroglyphics, a few stones, scarab beetles, wending paths in a pyramid, and so forth. While I didn't like Riddle of the Sphinx personally, it deals much better with discovery in a rather overworked setting. If I were to imagine a better case for Cameron, it might be in the Northwest Territory (think Twin Peaks), or Alaska (who's done that?), or even, heaven help us, Nebraska or Montana. No one ever goes there--there are, then, things to discover in those places.

But if Moira McFarley, an old family friend to Cameron, is to be the motivating force behind all that Cameron does, then the ending should be more responsibly developed. As other reviewers have noted, the ending is very short, barely a cut scene, and it really makes little sense. Character and story development are as important to me as the puzzles and the graphics; in this regard Pharaoh's Curse leaves much to be desired.

The puzzles are mostly logical, but as other reviewers have noted, there are timed puzzles, and more than just a few of them. There were timed puzzles in Loch Ness, but not nearly as many. Timed puzzles should really be judiciously used, and in Pharaoh's Curse I don't think they are. Moreover, there are a number of characters that don't have anything to offer--not even particular entertainment value--and, unlike Loch Ness, I found it necessary to get through some particularly and unnecessarily aggravating parts of the game with a walkthrough.

The graphics are good; but again, Pharaoh's Curse seems to have promised more than it delivered. The pre-release trailer was really beautiful, and I was under the impression that the game would sustain this quality of cut-scene; there are some very good ones, but the absence of a meaningful one at the end was pretty disappointing.

And yet, while I grumble, I cannot at all say that I am sorry I played the game. The tongue-in-cheek, self-conscious humor about Indiana Jones is amusing and satisfying, and Cameron still has his great, cynical, worldly attitude. It would have been better for me if Cameron had been a little more self-conscious about the silliness of his plumbing an Egyptian pyramid--he is not Indiana Jones, and thankfully--but he is still a great character. I will absolutely play the third Cameron Files, if there is one, and I would not want to do so without having played this second game. If nothing else, I want to absorb the whole storyline. And, thankfully, the pharaoh-Egyptian story may be out of the way now for a little while.

I give Pharaoh's Curse 3 stars because it is on the whole a fun game to play, as long as you leave some expectations at the door--do not expect it to be as inventive or logical as Secrets at Loch Ness; do not expect a great deal of development of the story in this installment; do not expect a game free of timed puzzles. It's fun to hang out with Cameron for a bit. And perhaps he'll be back soon.

Rating:
Summary: Not what it might have been
Review: The first game of the series was a fine one, and I was hoping for great things from Cameron Files 2. Unfortunately they seem to have taken all the wrong lessons from CF 1. Instead of making this one better, they just made it ... faster.

Gameplay is simple, though it's easy to get turned around in a 360-degree environment, but there's little interaction, and what there is doesn't make much sense. The puzzles in general don't make much sense. And the whole thing is far too short; the story just quits without explaining or wrapping up all the loose ends. You find yourself staring at the end credits going, "Where's the rest of the game?"

On the plus side, it's inoffensive and pretty. And what else is out there while we wait for the new "Full Throttle" game?