I give the developers of ROTS an "A" for effort, altho this game didn't grab me like similar games for ex. Riven or Amerzone where you are on a lone quest looking for clues and solving puzzles.
I was impressed with the exqisite detailing of the artifacts in the fabulous ancient Egyptian burial chambers that you- as a friend of noted archeologist, Sir Gilbert Blyth- must navigate thru to find clues and solve puzzles. You are alone, finding out about him by listening to tapes and reading letters.

What helps you to solve puzzles are numerous scrolls-so numerous you have trouble finding them, so many are piled up in your inventory. It also helps if you can read Egyptian hyrogliphics.

You wander around in beautifully decorated chambers that resemble the ancient burial chambers in the Valley of the Kings. There is also the gigantic statues of Abu Simbel, which can also be seen today. The desert scenery was quite well done.However some of the long, dark tunnels are boring and tedious to get thru and not enough opportunities to use "warp" mode to fast forward in these places.

The puzzles were quite well integrated with the story and moderately difficult. Some of the clues were obscure enough to send me to a WT before I died of frustration. (as tho I never do that-HaHa!)

The interface seemed somewhat awkward and clunky with arrows for only 180 or 90 degree turns, making it difficult to go where you want to quickly. Then another type of arrow and a wait if you want 360 degree visibility(only in selected places)The inventory became huge after a while with no way (that I could see) to get rid of unwanted stuff. One bothersome thing-don't click an inventory item over another item while working on a puzzle because the item will go back to the place where you found it! Which could be several long boring tunnels and a disk change away. Arrgh! that happened to me right at the end of the game at the last big puzzle and I had to retrace my steps and do a tedious task all over again to get the item back.

All said and done, I give this game a 3 and one half *** rating. Not a stinker and worth playing-but it dosn't have that special YESSSS! feeling for me.

that's '-Geoffreys'. Much mis-pronounced by Jeff Tobler - he insists on pronouncing it Gee-off-rees! Which is really rather ironic since it is just another spelling of his own name - Jeff-rees!

This really was the only thing that spoiled ROTS for me... a wonderful adventure Shame about the dull sequel.

Ta-ra,
The Gremlin