metzomagic.com Review

Scooby Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx

Developer/Publisher:  The Learning Company
Year Released:  2001

Review by Rosemary Young (June, 2006)
Scooby Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx Screenshot It's not surprising that Scooby Doo migrated from the TV screen and jumped right onto the computer screen as a children's adventure game, because the TV series had some good potential for adventuring. With its clues and conundrums and detecting mixed in with fun filled frights, there's plenty of scope. Scooby Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx is the 3rd Scooby Doo outing for the PC, in fact, and though it's entertaining, it could have gone a few steps further.

To be sure, it's a vibrant, and colourful, pure Saturday morning TV fair as Thelma, Velma's Egyptologist cousin makes her way through the darkened passages of a pyramid, her lantern lighting up the paintings on the walls. Then, after being startled by some mean looking bats, she finds 'it', a circular motif. As she approaches a huge, black, ghostly figure looms at her back.

Come on! Clues first then food
Switch to Scooby, Velma, Fred, Daphne and Shaggy arriving at the pyramid. Velma has arranged to meet her cousin but where is she ? there's a mystery to solve. As it turns out a mummy has taken up residence in the pyramid and it's not sleeping peacefully in a sarcophagus, it's walking around saying 'Boo'! Who could be behind this plan to chase people away, and why?

Scooby Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx is a point and click adventure for ages 5 - 10. There are three difficulty levels, Spooky, Spookier and Spooktacular so that the puzzles and games are simpler at the Spooky end and a few notches higher in difficulty for Spooktacular. The opening screen allows for several children to enter their name and solve the mystery separately. The game saves automatically on exit so by selecting their name each player can pick up and continue their adventure any time. It's all very simple and accessible although there are no subtitles for deaf or hard of hearing players.

Come on gang, let's keep moving
Scooby Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx Screenshot The idea is to find Thelma but only her diary is anywhere around. In it she tells a little of her discoveries and lists the people she's met: Joseph the Merchant; Starry Skies the UFO Expert; Bob and Edna the Tourists, Helmat the Art Historian, and Ishmael the Captain. Each one is waiting somewhere near the pyramid for the young player to find them, and each has a clue to hand over once their needs are satisfied. Only one wants a particular object and the rest of the bunch have a little test or game for the player to complete. Order various structures according to their height, follow the notes and play the tune, concentrate and match the patterns, and load up the baskets to their respective weights.

We're leaving and I'm still hungry
There's plenty of help available. The characters always have some good tips and clicking on the van at bottom left of screen displays a menu with a help option for naming the characters and identifying screen exits. This menu also has 6 inventory slots, plus a button for accessing a screen showing known suspects and accumulated clues. At the end of the game the player simply picks which character is the culprit judging by the number of clues pointing in their direction. Get it wrong and it doesn't really matter as the true culprit simply confesses and game over!

Scooby Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx is typical Scooby Doo madness but, apart from the tests and games, there are just two or three objects to find and only a few other challenges to overcome such as how to copy that map on the wall. Really the potential was there for the player to interact a lot more with the gameworld, face more environmental challenges and, for instance, find the clues for themselves rather than having them simply handed over. This would have encouraged more interaction and exploration and added some bulk to this shortish game. It does look and sound so good but, perhaps, the balance is tipped more towards the 'name' rather than towards the 'game'. There is some detecting fun to be had but more would have been better. However, Scooby Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx does have some reply value as the clues change for each game and so does the perpetrator.

metzomagic.com rating:  

Copyright © Rosemary Young 2006. All rights reserved.

System Requirements:
Pentium 166 MHz or faster, Win 95/98/Me/2000/XP, 32 MB RAM, 40 MB of free disk space, 8x or faster CD-ROM drive, 6-bit color monitor 640 x 480 resolution, 6-bit Windows-compatible sound card, DirectX 8.0 or higher (will be installed if needed), DirectX-compatible video card.