MadCap's Game Reviews - "Mummies Rising"

Oh, you knew I would have to go into that wretched hive of scum and villainy known as the Xbox Live Arcade. After all, it wouldn't be a proper Halloween without an indie game. So is this one going to be a spooky good time or is it going to be something to run away in fear from? Let's have a look at Mummies Rising.

The game's plot is simplicity itself.  From the game itself  "After the disappearance of an archaeological expedition in an Egyptian tomb, a soldier was sent to find them. His worst nightmare was about to begin...", a nice and rather foreboding set up. Simple, yes, but there have been games that have gone through less, especially in the first-person shooter genre.

However, the errors here are largely in design and mechanics, which drag down what could be a fairly simply, enjoyable concept. It's a first-person shooter, so you have a first person view as you shoot things. Easy enough, but the control is incredibly meh. Apparently your soldier character is continually walking waist-deep in ice cold molasses through the tombs of the ancient pharaohs. You can't move anything remotely resembling fast and turning is so slow that you might as well not even bother.

Which brings me to the environments. The Molasses Soldier is moving through each section of the tomb within a light that seems to move only with him...and hardly more than about five feet from him all around. I'm not kidding when I say this game is dark. This game is dark.  There, you can see I'm not kidding. Really, it's difficult to see anything, including the mummies until they're roughly ten feet from you. You're not going to know when the mummies are coming until it's almost too late, so better have that trigger finger good and ready there, spunky!

The weapons are nice, if a little lacking in diversity. Still, you do have to appreciate the simplicity. Need to re-kill a mummy? Use a gun.  Need to really re-kill a mummy? Use a bigger gun. Of course, the game doesn't let you use every gun on every level, but I'm not going to knock it for that.

That's really all there is to say. Shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. And avoid being attacked from behind.

...yeah, no, the simplicity doesn't help. Give it a miss.

Mummies Rising is now available from Rendercode Games for Xbox 360.

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