Curse: The Eye of Isis

Curse: The Eye of Isis
Developer(s)	Asylum Entertainment
Publisher(s)	NA: DreamCatcher Interactive EU: Wanadoo Edition
Producer(s)	Sai Wun Poon
Designer(s)	Jacqui Jomain
Programmer(s)	George Kartvelishvili Ed Key Graeme Baird Ian Cottrell Martin Fermor Richard Steer
Artist(s)	Jason White
Writer(s)	Dan Gould Louis Ho
Composer(s)	Mike Willox
Engine	RenderWare
Platform(s)	Xbox Windows PlayStation 2
Release	Windows [1] NA: October 21, 2003 PAL: February 6, 2004 PlayStation 2 [2] PAL: February 27, 2004 Xbox [3] NA: December 8, 2003 PAL: February 6, 2004
Genre(s)	Survival horror
Mode(s)	Single player

Curse: The Eye of Isis is a survival horror video game that was developed by British studio Asylum Entertainment and published by DreamCatcher Interactive and Wanadoo for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Windows. It was released stateside for Windows in October 2003 and for Xbox in April 2004. The PlayStation 2 version was only released in Europe.

It shares the same sort of atmospheric setting, gameplay, fixed camera angles, and ammo preservation as the earlier Resident Evil games, as well as many other archetypal survival horror games in the genre, such as ObsCure and Silent Hill.

The Xbox version of the game was very briefly backwards compatible with the Xbox 360, but was removed from the list because of glitches on December 1, 2005. The game remains unplayable on that system.

Storyline[]

Strange things are happening at Great Britain's museum of natural history in 1890. A gang of ruthless thugs have broken into the establishment, the Eye of Isis (an Egyptian statue) has been stolen, and a mysterious fog has overtaken a number of areas of the museum, killing and transforming all it comes into contact with.

Playing as museum curator/archeologist Victoria Sutton and her childhood friend Darien Dane, you will have to fight the various beings and entities created by this fog. You will spend considerable time in the museum, take a steam train to the coast and travel the seas in a huge cargo ship before finally entering the pyramid tomb where you must find and destroy the source of this ancient evil.

Reception[]

The game received mixed reception upon release, with the Xbox port receiving generally higher reviews due to the fixing of many of the PC versions bugs.

TeamXbox gave a mixed review, calling it an "average" game but that "Being a budget title, gamers will find that Curse is one of the more solid el cheapo titles, and worth the twenty bucks."

GameInformer Magazine gave a generally negative review, comparing the game to a "B-horror movie", and stated that "the menus are clunky, the map is useless, and combat is too easy." Although the controls were noted as above average, especially compared to the Resident Evil series.

, however, gave a generally positive review, praising the story, music, graphics, atmosphere, and voice acting, although noting the short length, simplistic combat, and linear gameplay as its shortcomings, but that they don't "...take away from the chills and thrills that await anyone who decides to play..."

References[]