Abu Simbel Profanation

Copyright : Dinamic | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

The third game to star Johnny Jones, this is his first adventure on the CPC and one of infamous Spanish company Dinamic?s earliest forays into a market that they would soon become one of the leading players in, particularly on the continent.

Escape the curse placed on you and break free of Abu Simbel?s Temple collecting the valuable treasure as you go.

Graphics

Owing to its translation from Spanish, the exact reasons as to why Johnny Jones appears to be a purple blob with legs is a bit of a mystery, having said that he is a well animated purple blob and he along with the various nasties that pollute the temple are clearly defined and tick all the necessary platform game boxes.

Collision detection is absolutely spot on which is important all platform games but never more so as in this one as without it the game would move from difficult to impossible fairly rapidly.

One minor gripe is that for a game seemingly set within the confines of an ancient Egyptian tomb, it feels more like a giant cave complex rather than the resting place of the pharaohs due to the colour scheme and background details being a little inconsistent with accepted Egyptian mythology. Not a big deal in terms of how it affects gameplay but it does lose out on an atmospheric edge that would otherwise be there.

Sound

Unfortunately there is no title tune or in-game music both of which would have improved the experience no end. Instead we`re left with the usual plat former sound effects - jumping, death that sort of thing!

Gameplay

Over the years Ive heard a number of people discussing Dinamics games and saying that they are the hardest to crack and Ive always put that down to being people who werent very good at Navy Moves for example. I would like to issue a full apology to anyone I may have doubted over the years. Abu Simbel Profanation is without doubt the toughest platform game I have ever played.

Without a word of a lie it took me ten minutes to crack the first screen. Each of the three nasties that you have to avoid require their own absolutely perfect timing to get past and what do I find on the next screen? More of the same. I could have cried! Instead I reset the emulator and loaded in the cheat mode just to sample what the rest of the game looks like.

Sadly, it would appear that Dinamic have opted to increase difficulty as an alternative to increasing variety as although there appear to be a number of fiendish traps and timing problems to overcome, there`s very little else to the game.

All in all things are just a little too difficult for even the most accomplished games player. The level of difficulty is so severe that it actually puts you off playing and the way that even the very first screen is nigh on impossible is a big turn-off.