The Adventure Company's latest mystery has some good ideas, but is often poorly executed and frustrating to play.

What springs to mind when you think of Sherlock Holmes? Deerstalkers and pipes, certainly; but also Dr. Watson, a vivid recreation of Victorian London life, clever dialogue and the careful solving of a complex crime.

The Mystery of the Mummy has Sherlock Holmes everywhere on its packaging. It’s a safe bet it’s aimed at Holmes fans. Unfortunately, the Sherlock presented in the game gets the clothing right and everything else wrong.

Just wearing a deerstalker hat isn’t enough. I don’t think that the Consulting Detective of Baker Street would ever exclaim “OK!” He’s also on his own for the whole adventure; the only dialogue occurs during cut-scenes.

In true old-style adventure fashion, he wanders around a mansion picking up random objects and doing inexplicable things with them. The plot (involving an eccentric Egyptologist and various relatives) becomes increasingly irrelevant. In fact, the final explanation of who did what and why is almost farcical, as the actors gabble their lines to get it over with as soon as possible.

Even once you’ve accepted that the hero isn’t quite the Sherlock of the books, and that the mansion doesn’t quite exist in 1899 (it would be pedantic to point out all the inconsistencies), there are still problems with the way the adventure develops. I’m always annoyed by major failures of plot logic; how come the traps all re-set themselves (involving moving objects between rooms) when the person you’re chasing has passed them?

There are a lot of more minor problems which suggest a lack of play-testing. Sometimes walking through a door leaves you pointing at an odd angle. Sherlock doesn’t show up in mirrors. Some objects can only be found if you’re standing in exactly the right place; you might think you’ve searched a room thoroughly when you haven’t.

Lamps can be lit from certain gas-lights and not others. The game text is riddled with spelling and grammar errors (anyone for a “Bootle of Spain vine”?) as well as other typos (such as “1998” instead of “1898” in a document crucial to the story). It’s fairly obvious that the text wasn’t checked by a native English speaker. Indeed, some writing during the cut-scenes appears in French.

The interface is absolutely standard for this sort of game, although the menu and inventory buttons are close enough to the screen edge that you’ll spend a lot of time looking at the ground and spinning around.

There are some beat-the-clock timed sections of the game, and only six save-game slots. Luckily (from this point of view) the action is hugely linear; you can’t progress to a new area until you’ve done everything required in the old one. Still, saving anywhere would have been nice.

Graphics are acceptable for a budget title, and sound is atmospheric even if the music is rather 1920s. The actor voicing Holmes is generally good (although he can’t pronounce some words), but the others are laughable.

However, the game is still strangely compelling despite all its many problems. Some of the puzzles are tedious (repeating the same thing over and over) and many involve pixel-hunting (slowly scanning a room to find the exact spot to click), but others are fiendishly involved and very satisfying to complete. Just the buzz which long-time adventure gamers need to keep them going.

If you’re not already an addict of the genre (and if you are, you’ll know it!) then you’d better leave well alone. Otherwise the whole experience will just become too frustrating.

Review by Marc Read.