Entombed Manual
---------------
      Ultimate,  9.95 cass,  14.95 disk, jostick with keys.
        Incredibly absorbing, addictive, original arcade-adventure 
        175 screen playing area with atmospheric graphics, ingenious puzzles 
        Moving platforms, magic whip, controllable torch, gongs, pools, 
        invisibility, etc. 

      Downloads: 

Many thanks to Pedro Gonzalez for doing all the hard work and sending Alex the 
text for this review. 


      As the cassette reaches the end, and loading nears completion, you say to 
      yourself 'I wonder if Ultimate have done it again?'. Once the game has 
      finally loaded and you've pressed the fire button to start, your heart 
      sinks and you think: 'They haven't -- it's Karnath revisited'.

      But they have and it isn't. You soon find that getting out of the first 
      location isn't quite so simple as you initially thought. When, hours 
      later, you've fully explored and sussed the first few levels, you realise 
      that Entombed is one of the most original and entertaining aardvarks 
      (arcade-adventures) ever to hit the 64 (or any other machine, come to 
      think of it).
 
             
            This game had me thouroughly engrossed from the very first location. 
            My mind longed to explore and my itchy fingers ached to map it. I 
            got an immense kick out of solving some of the excellent and 
            perplexing puzzles, but I felt somewhat disappointed and cheated by 
            the anticlimatic finish to the game. Still, a brilliant game and a 
            must for any aardvark fan. 
      The game retains the character of Sir Arthur Pendragon and some of the 
      graphics from Staff of Karnath, but any similarities stop there. Whereas 
      Karnath was relatively small, Entombed is large and complex -- 'the total 
      playing area is some 175 screens in size. Whereas 'Karnath included 
      puzzles made difficult purely by being obscure, the puzzles in Entombed 
      have logical and sometimes spectacular solutions. Indeed, the kick you'll 
      get from sussing parts of this game is about as great as any computer game 
      will ever give you.

      The action is set in an ancient Egyptian tomb, from which Sir Arthur must 
      escape. It has the same basic appearance as Karnath, except that 
      everything has an Egyptian flavour. Highly detailed and authentic 3D 
      background scenery adorns every location -- complete with some excellent 
      hieroglyphics which lend an incredible atmosphere to the game. The sprites 
      used, unfortunately, are of the same quality as Karnath, ie fairly large 
      and crude, but with some great animation -- just watch Sir Arthur jump!

      The tomb has several levels, each composed of a network of corridors and 
      antechambers, the corridors having many turn- ings and dead ends. Various 
      nasties frequent the corridors and devious puzzles lie within the chambers.
      While in the corridors, Sir Arthur can breathe freely. When in one of the 
      chambers on the other hand, there is a limited supply of air to breathe 
      and this is indicated by a percentage displayed on screen. Should he stay 
      in one room for too long, and the air percentage should reach zero, then 
      one complete life will be lost (you start with five).
      Contact with any form of nasty will deplete one of your lives by a certain 
      amount. Each life starts off displayed as white and this gets gradually 
      darker until the life is lost. Needless to say, once all five lives are 
      lost the game is over. However every fifth crow which flies overhead 
      carries lifegiving 'ankh', which you may be able to jump and grab. 
      The 3D viewpoint is the same as that in Karnath: a sort of cut away 
      side-on view of a location is shown. As before, when moving left or right 
      the screen scrolls smoothly in the same direction to follow the action. 
      It's also possible to move 'in' and 'out' of the screen as in Karnath, 
      except this time a slightly different approach is used: When you're in a 
      left/right corridor and you move into one of the passages visible going 
      into or out of the screen, the viewpoint flicks round by 90 degrees. So, 
      instead of showing a view of you walking into the screen, you are shown 
      moving across the screen again, with the passage you just left now at 
      right-angles to the screen.

      This shuffling of viewpoints can prove difficult to get to grips with at 
      first and makes mapping awkward. But needless to say, as with most 
      aardvarks, without a map you're liable to become hopelessly lost (which is 
      why we're printing ours overleaf.)

      Sir Arthur is controlled in the same manner as before -- with the joystick 
      plus occasional use of the space-bar -- only this time there are no spells 
      used to perform functions such as fighting and moving things. Instead the 
      space-bar is used to select one of three actions: jump, use the magical 
      whip or use the torch; Pressing the fire button will then perform the 
      action currently dis- played, although the latter two can be used only 
      after you've found the relevant equipment. The whip is easily found on the 
      first level but the torch isn't quite so easy to get (sorry, no 
            clues).Bob Wade 
            Wow! Great! Amazing! Incredible! (Get the idea?) This is without 
            doubt THE aardvark for the 64 or any other home micro. I loved the 
            graphics, the fighting is terrific and I found the puzzles 
            absorbing, devious, frustrating and above all addictive. If Ultimate 
            keep improving on the 64 the way they did on the Speccy then their 
            next one could be miraculous. This one is brilliant enough as it is. 


      There are a number of objects to be found within the chambers should you 
      solve the puzzles surrounding them. All of these are useful, if only to 
      help you obtain other, more important objects. It's a very long sequence 
      of events before you find the object you need to escape the tomb and end 
      the game.

      Most of the chambers are tough to crack and so some helpful clues are 
      provided throughout the game. These clues come in the form of cryptic 
      hints on scrolls and aren't given away just like that. No, they're 
      obtained in the same way as the objects -- with difficulty! When you 
      actually find a scroll, the clue on it is displayed at the top of the 
      screen for a couple of seconds.

      The sound effects are fairly good, but nothing to get excited about, 
      although there is the occasional good and rather unusual one. The game 
      loads in the same annoying manner as Karnath it stops half way through 
      loading to play a reasonable piece of authentic sounding music and won't 
      continue to load any further until you press a key.

      As is the case with all Ultimate games, the packaging is of a high 
      standard, and the instructions atmospheric but deliberately obscure 
      (although I must say these were some of the more helpful Ultimate 
      instructions I've come across). scene is set with an intriguing 
      explanation as to why Sir Arthur is in the predicament he's in and there's 
      the usual tantalising list of game features.

      The only real criticism of the game, applies to all aardvarks, indeed all 
      adventures. Getting stuck can be almost unbearably frustrating, and once 
      solved you may not want to return it. However there is a clock which means 
      you can always to solve it in a shorter time and in any case, you won't 
      complete the game without first joying many, many hours of classy, 
      demanding, atmospheric, exhilarating action.
            Oooohh! I'm knackered. I plaed this game for 16 hour yesterday 
            stopping only for food, nicotine and the type of coffee that strips 
            paint. Exploring and mapping this fabulous game is both stimulating 
            and tiring, through the laws of defeat to the exhilaration of 
            finally solving of the many horrendously difficult puzzles. A truly 
            classic game containing some amazing backdrops. Brilliant one, 
            guaranteed to keep you in company of owls for weeks 
             


      Presentation 83% 
      More helpful instructions than usual but same silly loader. 

      Originality 94% 
      Initially looks like Karnath but in fact has MUCH more. 

      Graphics 92% 
      Brilliant hieroglyphics and enemies and some marvellous rooms.


      Sound 58%.
      Great sound effects on whip, and some rooms, but no game music.


      Hookability 97% 
      Solving the puzzles gives an incredible kick. 

      Lastability 91% 
      Lots of devious puzzles and levels that really take some working out. 

      Value for Money 93% 
      Even better than Staff of Karnath -- what more can you say.

      Note : This article was original on Alex's "Brigadon - Zzap!64 Online" 
      site, which has closed down while he's gone on a world trip and eventually 
      planning to live and work in Dublin, Ireland. According to his farewell 
      message on his site he gives premission to grab and download any pages of 
      use. I tried to contact him directly to request premission to actually use 
      those pages on this site, but as I found out from a friend of his, he'd 
      left already. At the moment I'm going by this farewell message and 
      assuming that it's okay to use his pages on this site. His site will be 
      offline and these articles shouldn't be lost. Should he request it or his 
      site comes back at a later stage, I'll delete these related files.
