When you think of ancient Egypt, what are the first thoughts that you're mind conjures up? Pyramids? Check. Camels? Check. Sand? A no-brainer. How about a typically lazy teenager who's just recently escaped with his life after being damned by an evil death curse? This one may not have instantly sprung to mind unless you are familiar with Deck 13's point and click adventure, Ankh, and its happy-go-lucky protagonist, Assil. This reviewer heaped praise onto the enjoyably tricky original on its release in 2005, but now is the time for the ever difficult sequel, so has Ankh: Heart of Osiris managed to repeat the impressive feats of its predecessor?

After celebrating getting his life back in the only way many a teenager knows how (drinking until the world starts spinning, resulting in a stomach that feels like its been put on the spin dry), Assil awakes on the streets of Cairo with a hangover to define all hangovers - but relieved. That is until he realises that the Ankh, a piece of jewellery that heralds enough power to cause unthinkable evil, has gone missing from around his neck. Panicked and with no time to lose, Assil must set off to recover the Ankh and make sure that it does not fall into the hands of Osiris, the wicked God of the Underworld who, no doubt, would utilise the energy within the symbolic item for his own fiendish plans rather than making the world a better place, for you and for me and the entire human (and stop - Ed).

And so the adventure begins in the typically charming style that the point and click genre has perfected over the years. Chatting to the locals and exploring the environments for handy objects and clues, slowly but surely, will reward your snooping around with a breakthrough in the plot and a new lead to go on. In an early example, Assil must gain access into one of Cairo's most exclusive bars, but the bouncer refuses to let him in because he is scruffy and unshaven. And so, by finding wax, asking the city's fire-eater to melt it for you and visiting the Mr. Magoo-alike barber, our protagonist is able to blag his way into one of his hometown's hottest spots with his new, presentable appearance.

The game's controls are incredibly simple, making Ankh: Heart of Osiris the type of un-daunting experience that anyone can enjoy. Clicking the mouse once will guide your character to any given spot, while clicking on an object will instruct Assil to inspect it. Most aren't useful, but if he thinks it might be, with a right-click he'll usually pocket it for safekeeping. As far as the game's puzzles and riddles go, many are a case of trial and error, where speaking to the right people or combining the correct items together from your inventory will often lead to a new clue being uncovered or the successful completion of a task. That's not to say that your time is spent purely and randomly mixing, matching and clicking the whole time, since however obscure at times, every brain teasing conundrum has more than a degree of logic to its solution.

Anyone who played the original will instantly recognise the locations in which the game is played, since many are recycled this time around. While this sense of deja vu will somewhat please fans of the last game who'll already know their way around (whilst not bothering newbies to the series who won't know otherwise), it's a bit of a shame to see that Deck 13 weren't brave enough to take the franchise in a different direction entirely. Nevertheless, Cairo's still as interesting a location to survey as it was before, with enough peculiar inhabitants and aesthetic touches to keep you keen to carry on. Heart of Osiris isn't going to win any for the best looking title of the year, but its wacky cartoony style and reluctance to take itself too seriously produces the perfect blend between the gentle pace of the gameplay and its playful graphical appearance.

As touched on previously in this review, the biggest criticism that can be levelled at Heart of Osiris is the fact that it treads over old ground a little too much, not just in terms of its location, but also in relation to the series' previous storyline. As this title progresses, there's quite a few references to earlier plotlines which is bound to perplex the uninitiated. Although these gaps of knowledge don't detract from the core gameplay, the omission of any sort of 'Previously in Ankh' catch-up is a little bit of a disappointing oversight.

Don't let that put you off, though. With multiple characters to control (combining each other to solve puzzles), an incredibly witty and enjoyable cast of voice actors and around twelve hours of puzzling to enjoy, Heart of Osiris is well worth the asking price. And let's not forget the nostalgic inclusion of an actual cardboard code wheel with the title in order to solve one particular riddle, a real novelty in the present era of videogames and something sure to force a wry smile onto the faces of experienced players.

Titles such as Ankh and Games' Sam & Max should be, in this reviewer's opinion, commended more widely for keeping the point and click genre alive and kicking. Their initially simplistic appearance but cleverly intrinsic innards have been shunted aside in favour of polygon-pushing epics as technology has advanced in recent years, but for them to be sidelined permanently would be nothing short of a travesty. Persuaded at all? Then pick up Heart of Osiris...

79%

By Andrew Macarthy

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