While imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery, you have to know where to draw the line. It would go without saying that if the Resident Evil series hadn't kick started the Adventure/Horror style of gaming, then it would be highly unlikely that Curse: The Eye Of Isis would have turned out the way it has. This sounds rather negative but if it sounds that way to you, you're missing the point.

Curse: The Eye Of Isis at first glance does look like a Resident Evil game re-skinned. It's an adventure game with puzzles to solve and zombie-type enemies to kill all set in a 3D world, but dammit, this has a nice helping of atmosphere which is essential if you want to create a tense & immersive gameplay experience.

You begin your adventure as Darien Dane, son to the 19th Century archaeologist Dr Stanley Dane, who (luckily enough for the title of the game) discovered an extremely valuable Egyptian artifact named The Eye Of Isis. This piece of treasure is stored in the British Museum, ready for its unveiling to the public when Darien turns up only to be told by police that the museum has been sealed off. Scary stuff. Why is the museum closed to the public, why is the once great Dr Stanley Dane now residing in his own padded personal accommodation in an asylum and why is there a strange yellow mist that keeps making dead people alive again who (again coincidentally?) do not seem to like the Dane family? Well, it's not hard to figure out but you've just got to go with these things sometimes i guess.

initially your quest involves walking around restricted parts of the museum, getting used to the controls and settling into the storyline. Soon enough you'll meet a contact by the name of Abdul Waheed who is Curse: The Eye Of Isis' typewriter & chest. In other words, he can save games for you and look after items that you have collected but do not currently need. Essential for sharing equipment later on in the game when you take control of Victoria Stutton, Darien's long lost childhood sweetheart. Well, not entirely but it makes it interesting.

Control is pretty straightforward; move stick, walk in that direction etc, but here you can see the influences creep in from other games. The targeting system seems to have been borrowed from Eternal Darkness where you can change the location on the targets body to shoot/stab/attack and they also seem to have liked the idea of ED's sanity meter as we have a 'curse affliction' meter that depletes as you encounter the strange yellow mist. The more your curse meter is lowered, the more health will be taken away when you are attacked. It's a strange system where the game punishes you twice for one thing but it does keep the action tense.

The puzzles are not incredibly taxing or illogical and there are a few basic 'push block this way to trip the switch' scenarios to get around but it seems that the puzzles have been bolted on in favour of the action elements, which is rather strange for an adventure game but there you go. The storyline and settings are the saving grace of this game, although the story is nothing special, the way it goes with the setting help to carry the rest of that game and to keep you interested.

Thankfully, the backgrounds are all rendered in real-time. It fits very well with the characters and doesn't make you look like you're walking on thin air. The locations you visit are equally as pretty, from dark sewers to eerie Egyptian tombs; the atmosphere the game generates far outweighs the dated control system and design. Animation is handled well, the characters exude a slight air of an over-exaggerated cartoon style, it's nice to know that it has been designed with a self-awareness around it.

The sound is adequate for the game style, spooky music comes in when you're coming up to a set piece and the sound effects are standard but there seems to be a problem with the offbeat lip-synching. Off-putting to say the least when you're trying to get deep into the whole feel of the game. I must say though (as with most games of this genre) that the tip tap of your feet will get extremely annoying after a while.

Unfortunately Curse: Eye Of Isis is not an incredibly long game and the A to B to C style is not one to keep you coming back for more. Once completed i doubt if you would want to play all the way through, you've done it a million times before and there's nothing to tempt you back.

Overall, i like what Asylum Entertainment have done with a rapidly ageing genre, it's a fun, mildly self-aware piece of action/adventure/horror gaming and the settings are nice but there's nothing that instantly grips you and makes you want to come back and play more. To sum it up in an ever so British style (as the game centers around); Quaint.