Review By Tom Cross:
"When Myst III: Exile introduced the fisheye cam to puzzle games, the entire puzzle-adventure genre took a huge leap forward. No longer stuck in the static, postcard-like version of reality pioneered by Myst, gamers could see almost all of their surroundings, allowing for more complicated gameworld interaction, and more interesting and arresting landscapes.
What a sad thing it is to look at today's puzzle games and see that they haven't evolved in a promising way since Exile. If they've done anything, they've regressed, making up for this new technical capability by mothballing stories, acting, interactivity, and originality.
Cleopatra: Riddle of the Tomb is a poster child for this descent into mediocrity; a slow, steady path toward unmemorable gaming moments."
A truly good puzzle is a rare thing. It has to be challenging but fair, with a solution that is isn't immediately evident but instead deducible only by those who buckle down and set their minds to it.
Cleopatra: Riddle of the Tomb, a traditional point-and-click adventure, has many conundrums of this sort; puzzles that have the potential to break the brains of both rookie players and seasoned solvers, but become obvious to all once they are finally understood. Unfortunately, it also has a number of seemingly unreasonable riddles the answers to which remain opaque even after the puzzle has been successfully solved.
GI.net: "I wasn't expecting this game to arrive in my mailbox, but here it is. I had no clue what the game was supposed to be about, but who can resist the lures of ancient Egypt?
Cleopatra: Riddle of the Tomb is an adventure game set in ancient Egypt. It advances in a 360-degree view, scene by scene through a first-person perspective. Things start quickly as Thomas (your character) detects the signs of a struggle, and after a brief investigation, he discovers that his girl, Iris, and her father, Akkad, have been kidnapped. It soon becomes clear after he meets the queen, Cleopatra, that their disappearances have to do with the queen's upcoming astrology reading, for which Akkad is famous. Thomas sets off to the rescue in a bit of an odd and haphazard manner.
Unfortunately, there isn't much else to tell of the story. It is very much on the thin side. Cleopatra: Riddle of the Tomb is a very short game with a dense concentration of puzzles. While it might be considered an adventure game, after playing it, I tend not to think of it as such, because the story is just so thin that it really lacks the adventure part. You might want to imagine the game as a more elaborate version of a 2D puzzle game with short blurbs of story and reasoning thrown in every once and awhile. This is even more evident after you experience the extraordinarily simple point-and-click interface, barely utilizing a right-click function."
Overall, Cleopatra: Riddle of the Tomb, is a decent game. It seems, however, that the developer has concentrated its effort on the game's visual impact, even at the expense of gameplay and storytelling. Contrary to what the game title may suggest, Cleopatra makes only limited appearances in the game and her role is clearly secondary.
The game is also a bit on the short side, lasting only 8-10 hours of play. Nonetheless, if you are looking for an undemanding alternative, the richly historical settings and the visually appealing graphics are worthy reasons alone to give this game a try.
