Super Solvers Challenge of the Ancient Empires absolutely changed my life when I was a kid. It has everything: Great music, graphics, amazing game-play, difficult puzzles, and more. I used to play it for hours at a time and it has great replay value also as it is very difficult. I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes to solve puzzles.
There are four different themes of the game, Near East, Egypt, Rome, and China. Your character is supposed to explore each of these themes to find artifacts.
Each level is full of puzzles that you must solve to find the artifacts. The Near East theme features many switches, gadgets, and moving platforms. Egypt features reflective triangles and you must use to open secret doors. Rome features gongs that you must ring in different sequences in order to open doors. China features conveyor belts that must be operated by switches.
Each time you complete a level of the game you have to put together the pieces of the artifact that you found. They are everything from statues, stone carvings, ancient vases, and monuments. The game then gives you a short history lesson on these objects and the game continues again. Although this is a Super Solvers game, it never felt like a learning
game to me. The hardest things about the game are the puzzles and monsters. Often times these puzzles can be quite difficult. Figuring out which switch will operate which moving platform can be tricky while dodging monsters.
On top of all these puzzles, the game also includes an arsenal of monsters, such as scorpions, snakes, bugs, bats, caterpillars, and all sorts of other baddies. They can all be frozen by light beams that you can shoot from your helmet. The light beam is just one of the special abilities that you have during the game. You also have high-jump boots, and a force field and lasts for a few seconds. You can only use the force field four times each level making conservation important.
The controls are easy to master. Arrow keys move your character. Space bar uses your special abilities. And enter switches between your abilities. Once you beat the game, the game starts over with all new levels that are much harder than the original levels. Completing those levels are very difficult. The only major down-side to the game is the fact that every time you die, you have to start over from the beginning of the level. This gets very frustrating. Oh well, everything else about the game is perfect. For me, I’d rather have the game be very challenging than have it be too easy. If you download this game, you won’t be disappointed.