Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual review

It’s been too long since our PC screens were graced by City Interactive games, but our prayers have been answered at last. Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual is a by-the-numbers point-and-click adventure game that is about as generic and average as you could possibly imagine. There’s no panache, flair or creativity on show here, just your bog-standard adventure where every action you take is extended through cliched game mechanics.

You play a young lady named Sylvie Leroux, a budding archaeologist who has interesting theories on Sodom and Gomorrah. This is apparently related to her uncle’s own archaeological career, which involves digging things up on the island of Gozo. He disappears, you have to find him and there are bad people trying to stop you, all mixed up with a standard story of ancient prophecies and knightly orders (the Hospitallers instead of the Templars this time out). There’s also a bit where you have to fish a rotting mackerel out of the sea in order to bribe a parrot.

If you’ve played the rather woeful FBI Confidential games from the same developer, you’ll probably notice that this is almost exactly the same in terms of execution and visuals. Given that the main character from those games actually turns up as a ‘female tourist’ in this, the similarities have at least been recognised. If you enjoy below-average games or like adventures where the voices cut out halfway through every single sentence, then this one is for you. As is a sharp blow to the head with a bat.

Jul 30, 2009