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Introduction/Plot:
90% of times a game taken from a movie is an huge failure in term of gameplay, luckily The Mummy falls into the other 10%. If you didn't see the movie, well it's all about archeologist looking for fame and richness, though in their researches they will wake up a mummy with MIB failing to stop their efforts. Of course there a leet 'the end', there's a girl, there's a supposedly funny hero and the guy that cares only about richness. All the characters you expect to see (including the mummy) will be there, the movie looks like a theatre comedy. Hmm, anyway as far as I know we were talking about the game: as many sites said 'the game follows the movie plot', ok, that's an huge bullshit, the movie has love, huge action scenes, and one mummy, the game has no form of sex, just a polygonal girl, a lot of firing/slamming action and an impressive number of mummies, actually there are as many mummies as living people. Further more mummies and men stealing richness from the graves can share same level without touching each other, everything looks like it was just waiting for you. Of course in term of special effects there's no comparison, the movie is the secure winner, though here there's some interaction that a movie can't have (still).
Gameplay/Controls
Clean your mind, think about Lara, remove her boobies (sorry), cut her ass and her hair... what we got... Tomb Raider with a male. Yes, both the archeological ambientation (you could not act a mummy game into a Club Med) and the gameplay are extremelly smelling like Lara (not that part of Lara...). Controls and options seems like having an 'Hitler' mode, or you play with keyboard using the keys they choosed or you may fuck off, pretty weird but true (or I missed some options for two times...). Compared to the average T.R. game there's some more fighting and less jumping around (no boobies to bounce, no need to jump). About forced keys, you will jump with 'ctrl' and fire with the 'space', that's dumb since any one that has being playing FPS from Wolfstein 3D to today will just keep hitting ctrl in front of enemies, jumping in front of them and falling back just in time to be hitten.
There are some added features like collecting manufacts to 'develop' weapons and/or to gain lifes. The game is not hard, though you may miss a column or a grave and have to keep going around for minutes thinking about what you may have forgot, still hardly you will really have to go back for a long way, tricks are close to the doors, just fairly hidden.
Using the good graphic engine they choosed to work a lot on the lightin effects, proper usage of the torch is really usefull if not a must sometime.
Enemies falls after two - three shoots/hits, the 'z' key is extremelly usefull to avoid being trapped by some of them, yes being trapped in the middle of two or more enemies drives to a certain death, though their articial intelligence is extremelly plain (run toward you).
Good and Fast. This game is a pleasure to play, though you will not front anything but good 3D, no extraordinaries effects, just some solid lighting and good textures. I did play the playstation version and really there's an huge difference still the pc can outperform the psx more. Enemies and player polygons are properly animated and rendered, and as a bonus the faces of the three characters are those of the cocks that did perform in the movie. You know, Lara's virtuality looks better than their truthness. Cutscenes are not pre-rendered but just using the same 3D engine and some camera movement, though they work out pretty well given the engine power.
Sound
I said about trying the psx version, well, the sound is the thing that prooves the PC version to be better mostly. There are full 3d effects, really well balanced use of basses, it's really easy to spot where next enemy hides just hearing at the spacial effects. If you just keep attention to your ears (wash them before playing the game, sorry but a good nerd has to do it sometime) you will be able to know when it's time to run ('x' key) since you're going to meet falling columns.
Overall
Well, it's clear, they invented Tomb Raider, but without Lara and all her jumping around something is lost, though the game in appealing and you will hardly dump it, the darkness and the feeling you're actually going to discover something will keep you playing for some hours even if you had other taks to accomplish. It's not a success but it works, though being took out of a movie doesn't really add anything to the game.. so if you did like the movie don't care about this one, if you love the third person genre, here you may have found something for you.
