Reviewed: May 19, 2007
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud
Publisher
XIDER
Developer
Deck 13
Released: May 18, 2007
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen
7
6
6
7
6.5
System Requirements
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Ankh: Heart of Osiris is the sequel to Ankh from Xider Games and Deck 13. The first Ankh was a great puzzle game with some very unique story driven puzzles and a very funny theme. The sequel is also pretty good with some very funny parts and new puzzles for some new fun.
Ankh Heart of Osiris continues the story of Assil and the Ankh, his true love Thara and some familiar foes to defeat. Assil wakes up in an alley with a hangover and no Ankh. He must go forth and solve puzzles to recover the Ankh from however has stolen it from him while he was, um, incapacitated, okay passed out from too much wine.
Heart of Osiris continues the adventures of Assil and his friends to find the once again lost Ankh. This time it was his own, er, carelessness that finds the Ankh missing and you have to puzzle your way through about 10 to 12 hours of puzzles to find the Ankh. The scenes will pretty much be familiar with some variations and new ones. Heart of Osiris is pretty much a continuation and many of the same things are in the sequel. The puzzles are more of the find things to combine and go running back and forth to accumulate what you need using thinly veiled clues from talking with other characters.
Heart of Osiris does include a helpful objectives display to help you out with your main goal as well as your inventory that is on your main screen at the top. Talking to characters or finding useable objects is a matter of moving the cursor around and clicking on the changed area or character. Much of your clues and hints will be derived from conversations with the characters so anything that is said needs to be carefully scrutinized.
Some of the puzzles can be done out of order as you do have things that need to be done eventually but there is no strict way to do them. For instance the bar scene finds you having to content three of the four patrons of the bar. You have several ways to do this and not always in a certain order. One way to cheer up two of the bars inhabitants is to get them a drink but not from the bar.
A wine maker outside will help you make a drink but he can’t remember the recipe or ingredient amounts and this is one of the puzzles with the help of an included gadget. They have included a puzzle solving device along with the game CD in the form of a code wheel you use to help the wine maker with his drink making. You also need to sneak the drink into the bar or the bar maid will get mad about bringing outside aperitifs into her bar.
There are other puzzles that are both easy and more difficult as you progress in your quest to find out who stole the Ankh and by doing so save your world. You also get help in the form of using more than just Assil in your puzzle solving just like the previous Ankh game. One chapter finds Assil trapped and you switch to his able bodied friend, Thara. Using both Thara and some hip companions from the previous Ankh adventure you must rescue Assil and help him find the Ankh.
Heart of Osiris continues this back and forth between characters and using two characters to solve puzzles in a unique way that is pretty good. The gameplay is pretty straight forward puzzle solving using both characters and object combining but it is mixed with some good humor and unique puzzles.
There are some very good graphics in Ankh: Heart of Osiris but there were some problems as well. At times portions of the screen objects would garble and not appear like your inventory objects. Just moving your cursor over the area that has your inventory would bring them back but for one scene this was especially frustrating as you have all kinds of stuff in your inventory and having to keep moving around it to find the things you need made the puzzle harder.
Heart of Osiris uses some very good lighting, effects and cartoon like animations for a really good blend of scenes and cut scenes. The game takes the cartoon like theme to create a nice looking world with no problems that really mattered.
There is some very good voice acting in Heart of Osiris and the sound effects and background sounds were pretty good. The music is just as good a quality as the first Ankh with some modern sounding music and themes with some ancient qualities to them. There was no real problems with any of the audio portions of Heart of Osiris.
Ankh: Heart of Osiris will last about ten to twelve hours with some very good puzzle solving that will not be too hard. The games humor and mix of simple and more challenging puzzles is a nice blend that is very entertaining. If your into puzzle games Heart of Osiris is very much worth the effort and mind exercises.
Ankh: Heart Of Osiris is a pretty good sequel to the original and well worth a try at. Heart of Osiris uses some very good humor and puzzles for an entertaining and fun puzzle game.