There is no rest for the
weary. You (Alan Parker Cameron – hair challenged, private investigator
extraordinaire) just get back from your trip to Loch Ness, put your feet
up on the desk, get yourself a cup of coffee and wham next thing you know
you’re on a plane to Egypt. It seems there are some strange things going
on at an archeological dig that Moria McFarley is on and she wants you
investigate (she is getting the feeling she is being followed). You arrive
at the hotel to check in and of course Ms. McFarley is no where to be
found (what is up with these McFarleys’? They are never where they are
supposed to be). So begins your search – to find Moria and whatever it is
that is stalking her (and meet a couple of real nut cases and some serious
cursing (no, not that kind) along the way).
I know, I know – another game set in Egypt, but I’ll be honest, I love all
things Egyptian so I was pretty happy to spend my time roaming around a
museum full of artifacts (I just wish you could have read what you were
looking at). You also get to ride in a boat, climb cliffs and go inside a
tomb (even if only for a little while). And yes, just like in Loch Ness
you can die – so I suggest saving pretty often because if you’re like me,
you’ll be reloading a time or two or three or four. There are 16 save
games slots and I used that many plus a few more since I was so paranoid.
It’s simple to load or save, just hit the escape key and click on the load
or save button and then click on the picture you want. You exit the game
the same way by hitting escape and click exit and then the game asks you
if you really want to leave, yes or no – you hit yes and it takes forever
(ok that’s an exaggeration, it just felt like forever) for the exit screen
to come up. You’re looking at a blank piece of parchment and Cameron’s
face. The first time it happened I thought the game had frozen but nope,
just have patience and that exit button will appear. But if you don’t hit
the exit key just right – you wind up clicking on the DreamCatcher web
address and if you have DSL like I do – guess where you go?
Inventory is handled just like Loch Ness – when you find an item, click on
it and it automatically stores itself in inventory. To access, just right
click. You also have the wallet that holds papers, books etc. Make sure
you remember to look there. I got stuck a few times because I forgot and a
clue I needed was on a piece of paper I had picked up. There is also a
diary that stores the cut scenes in case you want to replay them.
Truthfully I never used it and I’m not sure why they are there because I
don’t remember any clues being in the cut scenes. I more found the diary
annoying because I kept accidentally clicking on it instead of the wallet
and then had to click all over the dang screen to try and get out. The
best thing – there was not one maze – happy days are here again. The
puzzles are all logical. No clicking on everything in inventory to see if
something will work (well most of the time anyway).
You can install the entire game on your hard drive (I’m guessing it’s the
entire game) but you still require the first CD in to play. But there is
no disk swapping this way. So if you have the space – do the full install.
The only problem I had was the game hated my Soundblaster Live card for
some reason. The voices kept cutting out on me, that and the game ran
very, very slow in a few places. Most noticeably when trying to talk to
the desk clerk at the very beginning and in one other area of the hotel. I
solved the problem by switching from Hardware to Software mode. That
cleared up both sound and cursor stickiness. Why I should have had to go
into Software mode is a mystery since the recommended game specs call for
a 16 meg video card and I have a 32 meg but it beat fighting with the
mouse. I realize that it also degraded the graphics but not to the point I
was really bothered by it. I could occasionally see a broken line in the
sidewalk but other than that I didn’t notice much difference. However, if
you’re a graphics freak, this may bother the heck out of you. The game is
first person, point and click.
In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed this game, more so than Loch Ness.
It’s not super hard and all in all probably took me 20 hours give or take
to complete. I really hope there is a Cameron Files 3.
My system specs:
AMD 450
Soundblaster Live
Nvidia TNT 32 meg video card
DirectX 8.1
196 megs ram
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GameBoomers
