Review by JJ

This is one of my favorites in the series, but when playing this game I often found that they tried force too much history on you. Other than that it’s a great game, and I have the following comments on it:nnStory-You have a summer internship working at a Mayan museum in Washington D.C. For those of you who don’t know, the Mayan civilization was an Indian civilization that vanished without a trace. Anyway, you are doing basic chores when a certain artifact is stolen, and a scarlet hand print is left at the scene of the crime. Hence the title. Eventually, you solve this mystery only to have another one thrown at you in the middle of the game, so you are actually getting 2 stories in 1.

Graphics-These are pretty good graphics, with the backgrounds looking pretty real. The characters still look definitely fake, but this has pretty good graphics still.

Sound-The music is okay with kind of a Mayan twist on it, but the voice acting really isn’t that great. And the lips are REALLY off. I ignore it, and it doesn’t bother me, but others it might bother a little bit.

Gameplay-The gameplay is exactly the same as the others in the series. It is first person point-and-click. You ride a metro system to get places, and the alarm clock is back, allowing you to go to sleep and wake up anytime you want. The puzzles in this game are a little more difficult and numerous than in other games, and some of them are quite boring, but most are fun, and I can forgive the ones that aren’t.

Fun-This game is pretty fun, but unlike the other games where there is just a tad bit of learning mixed in among the mystery, in this game, prepare to learn a LOT about Mayan history. I hated it, because I hate history, but my friend loved it because he likes history. I think the producers were just trying to appeal to history lovers as well as mystery lovers in this game, and I understand that. No bad enough to give 3 stars, but not good enough for 5.

Length-Oh. My. Goodness. This is a rather long game. It took me several months to finish, and whenever I replay it (which is a lot) it will take me about 12-15 hours because I still have trouble with some of the puzzles!nnThe puzzles are hard, but the answers are in the game, you just have to look for them. The history is boring, but the story is great! A great addition for history buffs, but if you don’t like history, this game is still worth playing through at least once!