Producer: Firebird
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Zigurat

Oh, that wicked Abu-Sahl, his mother said he would come to no good ... and now he's stolen the Jewel Of Luxor, more treasured than the pyramids and a lot more nickable. This Egyptian Arthur Daley intends to flog the precious chunk of rock for a fortune, and he must be stopped.

Archaeologist Nevada Smith, his assistant Janet Dwight and Al-Hasan, a peculiar hanger-on, are the only people who can thwart the evil one's plans to swell his building-society account. Each has different abilities with which to combat Abu-Sahl's guards, who seem to spring from every nook and cranny.

Beautiful Janet is first into the action; it wily enough to escape the clutches of the early marauding miscreants she can collect Al-Hasan and then Nevada from their hiding places. These two then follow in her wake, more often a hindrance in their positioning than a help, till a character switch is made and one of them can take the lead.

Indiana - sorry. Nevada Smith and his companions can gather the weapons that they find about them, such as grenades and guns, and with them deal lethal injury to Abu-Sahl's henchmen, all of whom must be killed on each screen.

Nev, Jan and Al each have four lives that are reduced by imprudent contact with a bullet or dynamite stick fired or flung by those dirty bad guys.

Together they can defeat the awful Abu-Sahl; together they can also get themselves into a lot of trouble.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston
Graphics: clean and well-defined with imaginative backdrops
Sound: rambling jolly tune, but meagre spot FX

Graphically, Mystery Of The Nile is very detailed; the desert backdrops are captured well, as are the characters. It's playable, but becomes frustrating when you have your two companions bumbling around - under the control of the computer they're incredibly stupid and walk into the enemy freely, losing you a life in the process. Still, Mystery Of The Nile could be a relaxing alternative for the hardened shoot-'em-up fanatic.
RICKY [72%]

Immediately I thought of US Gold's Zorro: a predominantly yellow screen, lots of little detailed and well-animated characters and a strong feeling of a hot and sweaty atmosphere. The screen arrangement is well-structured, with colour clearly-defined - ruling out clash and also keeping the display lively. Mystery Of The Nile is a very simple problem solving game, the better for the quick flick-screen technique, and it certainly has character - though its lastability is doubtful.
PAUL [70%]

Mystery Of The Nile is a fantastically addictive little game with cute graphics and some really good tunes thrown in. It's a bit confusing at the start, but with a bit of help from Paul Sumner for my Playing Tips) you'll soon be on your way to completing it. The three main characters are excellently drawn and move around well. Though it's very simple, like a kid's cartoon, you'll get some enjoyment out of Mystery Of The Nile.
NICK [80%]

Firebird
£7.95

Something bizzare's happening in the old bazaar. Baghdad? That's no way to talk about yer mum, son. But what a way to Cairo on. There's evil Arabs aplenty pitting themselves against the three heroes - or rather two heroes and one heroine - of this all-shooting arcade-adventure.

But if I say 'arcade-adventure' that could suggest naff little graphics and plenty of leaping and dodging, with lots to do with arcade, but precious little to do with adventure. Mystery Of The Nile is much more a case of characters on a quest.

So put Willy out of your mind and think instead of Wally and his ilk. Your heroic trio here are big, chunky sprites, smoothly animated as they pursue their mission in the Middle East. So select your controls and step on down Nevada Smith - who swears he's never been Indiana - Al-Hasan, your Arab ally, and Janet, the plucky dame.

Actually, it's Janet who you encounter first, alone and aloft, atop a balcony amidst the minarets (coo, dead poetic, what?). Time for a little ledge leaping as she hurtles for her ammunition. Each character has it's own weapon and in the case of Janet it's bombs.

Once she's picked up the explosives - which resemble a pile of profiteroles - she's ready to do some arcade-adventuring. Don't expect to have to discover lots of obscure objects and build your own fusion reactor to get off the screen, though. There's nothing so intellectually taxing in this game. Instead, you just have to kill enough dastardly Arabs to progress.

In fact, it won't take long to learn that the secret of finding Abu-Sahl and the Jewel of Luxor (though it don't say Lux-or what) is to keep on killing. But it's not quite so thick-eared as it sounds. You have to learn where the enemy appears from, so that you can deal with them efficiently. And be prepared to dodge gunshots and the odd stick of dynamite, because they won't all sit around and wait for you to play top-the-towelhead!

Three screens into the game and you run into the next of three daredevil adventurers. Al-Hassan - but Paul Simon calls him Al - follows and once you've picked up his weapon, an umbrella which he uses to deadly effect, you can change between characters with the number keys.

Two more screens and you're off to Nevada - Smithy that is (handsome and heroic - obviously some relation). He packs a six-shooter (Or is he just glad to see Janet? - Ed) which he picks up in the next screen. So now you've rounded up the trio and things really start to get tricky.

Heroes they may be but brainy... forget it! in times of stress they keep cool... so cool they get in each other's way! Talk about stoopid! The only way you can prevent yourself shootin, stabbing or blowing up one of your allies, depending on who you've got under control, is to work out the order in which they follow each other.

Later screens introduce nastier problems, such as assassins on roof-tops and attacks from both sides. It's at times like this that you'll need a double-ended defence and a few extra fingers as you switch between characters. Each screen has its own particular problems, and by the time you've fought your way to the end of the tenth, you'll be glad of the save facility which means that further games can start without too much dull repetition.

The mystery of Mystery's origin is easily solved - Made in Spain sort of gives it away. But like so much Spanish software, while this is great on the graphics, it's a little lacking in terms of playability. You have to be so swift with the number punching if you're to defend yourself that only professional typists need apply for the quest.

No, that's not fair. It's tough, but it can be beaten. I know because there were times when I was sure I'd never get off a screen... and then I discovered the secret and off I went. So get the sand in your sandwiches and camel-long on this Middle-Eastern massacre. And don't stop what you're dune till you reach your just deserts.

Label: Firebird
Author: Ziggurat
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tamara Howard

I don't want any of you lot to say that Mystery of the Nile looks anything at all like the film of similar name starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, because it doesn't.

That said, I can get on with the review. Mystery of the Nile is an arcade adventure, set in Egypt (vota surprise) and concerns the search by hero Nevada Smith (!), his assistant Janet Dwight (!!), for the sacred Jewel of Luxor, which has been whipped by Abu-Sahl and his thugs.

It's quite nice to look at, but there's nothing special about the graphics and though there are forty screens in all, they flip rather than scroll.

Each location has a full complement of angry assailants and different adversaries need different members of your home team to kill them. Because - and here's the novelty element folks (you knew there was one didn't you - and it certainly wasn't the plot) - get to play all your three characters at the same time! Anyway, as you progress, you pick up Indiana, I mean Nevada Jones. Smith, Nevada Smith. And then you have to choose between the three of them as to who's best to bump off whom.

Now the only problem with this brilliant idea, is that you have to wait for everyone to catch up with you. So if you change from Janet to Al-thingy, you have to wait for everybody to turn around and get behind you, and while they're doing this, the chances of catching a bullet are pretty good.

That's a bit of a downer really. But apart from that, the lacklustre graphics and blippy pseudo-Arabic music, there's something completely. 'Ooh - just-one-more-go' about it.

OK, so the graphics are a tad trundley, and there's a pretty imaginative blip, blip, squeak, squeak, splodge as everyone trots round the town, but the film's the thing, I mean, the game, what film, nobody mentioned a film did they?

All together now, when the going gets tough, the tough get going...