Riddle of The Sphinx

Review by MMyers

"Let my people go! So shall it be written; so shall it be done."

Although I have never visited there, I have always been fascinated by Egypt and its history. The mysteries of the pyramids and mummies and of the Sphinx: who actually built these large structures and who are encased within them? What, or who, is the Sphinx a depiction of? Then there are the legends and myths of the ancient gods. Gods that represented nature: Horus was a sun-god but was represented by a hawk; life: Isis was goddess of fertility and motherhood; and death as in the case of Osiris.

In Imagic's 1982 Atari 2600 game Riddle of the Sphinx you get to explore these ancient beliefs as you travel the Valley of Kings as Pharaoh's son. You are sent out on a quest to lift a curse set on the kingdom. Why it was cursed is never explained though you learn you must travel to the sun-god Ra's temple with offerings to appease him. For this he will lift the curse.

How this can be accomplished depends on what game number you select. In game 1 our hero only needs to reach Ra's temple to complete his quest. No special offerings are needed. In game 2 an offering must be made to the Sphinx so you may pass and continue on to the Temple of Ra where another offering is required. Only then will he accept whatever treasures you've found and lift the curse. In game 3 proper offerings must be made at all the major sights: the red Phoenix, Isis' and Anubis' temples as well as the Sphinx and Ra's temple. To make it harder you'll need to give an additional object at the Phoenix and the two temples before you're allowed to pass. You'll be armed only with your slingshot for protection.

Along the way you'll be confronted by thieves who also are armed with slingshots, scorpions and Anubis, a god of the underworld who will try to touch you in order to inflict mortal wounds on you. Nomad traders also appear and may give you much needed items or try to steal from you. Only Isis will be your true ally if you treat her reverently by touching her feet in worship.

Visually the game tries to look reminiscent of an ancient Egyptian tale by trying to make the graphics all look like hieroglyphics. Our hero, the thieves and the nomad traders all look like nonmoving symbols of people with slight differences. Your character is seen from the back, has short hair, red shorts on and is holding something in his right hand. The thieves are seen from the front, are bald and wear black shorts while the Nomads have long hair and appear to be holding something in their left.

Isis is even harder to make out as she reminds one more of a pair of blue weighing scales than a woman. Anubis is drawn somewhat better as a man with the head of a jackal carrying a walking stick. This is somewhat reminiscent of the evil army the Scorpion King commands in the Mummy Returns. The scorpions however are the best drawn characters in the game.

A gray field dotted with palm trees, camels that cannot be ridden, brown pillars or obelisks, little tufts of grass and small pools of water bookended by more palm trees are your surroundings. The landmarks encountered along the journey as the game scrolls up or down (depending on whether you're going forward or doubling back) are small representations. You'll see a glyph of the red Phoenix with its wings spread symbolizing the fabulous bird that supposedly burned itself on a pyre upon reaching the age of 500. From its ashes another phoenix arose as a symbol of death and resurrection. Pyramids with a light shining from their tips so it casts a shadow are scattered throughout the area. The temple of Isis is blue like the character it's made for with 2 white columns near the entrance, trim around the top of the little front door, a dome on top with tiny extended edges and two others at the top ends of the building that almost look like wings. It looks ornate next to the square, brown structure that is the temple of Anubis with its 4 white columns and unadorned appearance. The glyph of the Sphinx looks like a brown animal with big eyes looking out between the paws of a lion as if he's laying down with a big headdress atop his head. Finally, the temple of Ra is depicted in a pictograph as seen from very far away with a sprawling blue building under a yellow disk. Obviously a symbol of Ra as a sun-god.

You never get to enter these structures but only touch the bottom with your offerings selected from your inventory. These are shown at the bottom of the screen and include: shield, staff, jug, Tannis leaf, spade, scroll, crown, ankh, keys, the 3 tablets, disk of Ra, goblet, necklace and scepter. All are fairly easy to distinguish despite being monochromatic. How you determine what you present is found by reading the little riddles contained in the manual relating to each monument. For instance, the Sphinx - ''Inscrutable marvel! Find the offering it seeks and you will have solved its riddle. A bird can fly over, a scarab crawl past or a lion stalk by -- Son of Egypt, turn to these. It is written as on stone.'' Most of these are easy to figure out by a simple process of elimination. You select these things from your inventory with a second joystick just as you had to do in Atari's Raiders of the Lost Ark. This other joystick is also used to take advantage of things like: the jug for water or the Tannis leaf for healing by pressing the button once it's highlighted.

The console is also utilized. Above the inventory and below the game field is the score (inner strength points) if your right difficulty switch is set at B. If it's set at A then you'll see how much time has elapsed. If the TV type switch is set to B/W then you'll only see the Prince's (your) wound and thirst scores. In fact water is an important factor as the game continues because the Prince will slow down to a crawl as he becomes dehydrated. Wounds will do this as well and both factors will keep you from hurling rocks far for defense and eventually lead to death. These things give much needed tension to the game. Something it seems to lack somewhat despite this supposedly being a life or death struggle. For a little more tension the game allows you to up the number of enemies with the left difficulty switch.

There is no music in the game which is unfortunate because something that sounded foreboding might have helped. On paper this game seems like it should be a winner. The visual touch of making everything look like a hieroglyphic makes sense not only because of the subject matter but because of the system's limitations. Yet everything simply looks too small and it takes some real scrutiny to realize what they were trying to do here. Real hieroglyphics look far more ornate than these. The lack of character animation only makes the game visually boring and the beeps and whistles used to highlight the different events in the game don't help.

This game gets an A in originality but a D in execution. Even the ending of the game, when the curse is lifted, is so banal you almost don't care. The object that Ra wants is hard to find simply for lack of information. It's certainly not hard to guess what it is based on the riddle given in the directions. Neither is it hard to acquire once you know where to look. You may even stumble upon it by accident. Once you have it and present it at the temple entrance it disappears along with other treasures you've acquired. That's it! The game just ends with absolutely no fanfare whatsoever.

If you're really interested in the subject matter then I think it would be worthwhile to get this and try it. Mainly because it's a common cart and should be fairly easy to find. Otherwise this game will probably be a disappointment.