Curse - The Eye of Isis Review

Curse - The Eye of Isis

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Publisher: DreamCatcher

Publisher 2: Wanadoo

Developer: Asylum Entertainment

Category: Action

Release Dates

N Amer - 12/08/2003

Official Game Website

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Curse - The Eye of Isis Review

Glink It

I love the whole horror thing. Games, movies, books, you name it, if it involves zombies, monsters, the undead, doing unspeakable things to poor (but usually deserving) humans then I'm all for it. But this affection towards this particular genre can sometimes get my ire up. You see, just because I love horror it doesn't mean I love all things horror. I mean, it has to be decent horror, you know, original, well written, cleverly plotted or maybe it's a tried and true formula but just executed well. I know, I might as well be using any genre, but since I'm such a rabid fan of horror I guess I take it that much more seriously. All of this adds up to one very disappointing video game.

Curse The Eye of Isis is a survival horror game that takes place in the late 1800's where an Egyptian exhibit is about to open in the Museum of Natural History in London. As the son of a famous archeologist, Darien Dane arrives at the museum the night before the exhibit is set to open. Strange thugs descend silently on the museum intent on thievery and an evil mist begins seeping out of the highlight of the exhibition; a statue of the Egyptian God, Isis. So OK, everything sounds good so far. We've got an interesting location, a spooky era and the mystery of ancient Egyptian artifacts. It's about this time that the game begins to roll downhill, which is sad because I thought the game had a good premise.

The first major problem is the controls. The game has a fixed camera look to it where as you control Darien Dane as he runs from room to room. Players of the Resident Evil series will find this very familiar. Where things go bad though is how the direction pad is used. If you push up on the pad, Darien will always run that towards the top of the TV screen, the same is said with all the directions, however when the camera changes you are forced to reassess where he is facing and then push the correct direction. If this sounds confusing then you are right it is.

The second major problem is the game's poor graphics. I own this game on the PC and the rendered backgrounds were done quite well. On the Xbox version I couldn't believe how much worse they looked. The gritty, scummy feel of seedy London that was present on the PC version simply is not there now. The dirty bricks in the alley, the disgusting sewer water and the overall ambience of the game has been replaced by flat, uninspired, boring backgrounds. The characters are sometimes shakey as they stand there and don't have very realistic body movements. Graphically this game just plain stinks.

The third and final major problem is the gameplay. The game is pretty much a Resident Evil modeled game. Find the key, open the door, find the crank, activate the puzzle. Nothing new or exciting here, absolutely nothing. This might as well have been Resident Evil lite or Alone in the Dark: The shelved idea. I stated above that I look at the horror genre seriously because I am a fan, well, this game disappointed me so much that I have been forced to watch my DVD of Day of the Dead and play a bit of Eternal Darkness.

Not all is horrible though, I must say that I liked how they set up the shooting portion of the game, and the menu system was easily navigated. But if these are the highlights of the game, then maybe you should avoid this title.

Reviewer's Scoring Details

Gameplay: 5.2

Horrible, horrible, horrible, did I mention that this game is horrible in regards to the control scheme. What were they thinking making the fixed camera and the controls literally fight one another. A game should be challenging based on the puzzles or the difficulty in defeating the bad guys, not the controls being set up so poorly.

Graphics: 5.9

Dim poorly rendered backgrounds and shakey character models coupled with poor looking zombie things.

Sound: 6.6

The game has average voice acting and acceptable background music. I wanted it to sound better in order to hopefully elicit some moodiness to the game, but it fell short in the end. I wanted better and didn't get it.

Difficulty: Medium

The most difficult thing I found was trying to play as I got further and further into the game. It just wasn't much fun and I found myself getting more and more disappointed as the game went on.

Concept: 7.2

The whole idea of the game was spot-on, but the execution fell through the basement. I liked the idea of a horror game in a massive creepy museum and we all know how creepy Egyptian mythology can be, so it just made it that much worse when the game didn't effectively use these strong base elements to make a better game. A good idea gone horribly awry.

Overall: 5.4

There isn't much more that I can say that I already haven't. It was a bad gaming experience that should not have been.