Total Eclipse

STORY / GAMEPLAY
A pyramid was built to eliminate anything that could block the Sun but this time a total eclipse is imminent in two hours and will bring about the effects of an ancient curse that will annihilate the Earth! The story starts somewhere in 1930 and you just landed on a desert, near some ancient pyramids . You now have to solve puzzles, open doors, collect ancient relics and kill enemy mummies to reach to the top of an enormous pyramid and destroy the statue before the eclipse starts. The game is played via first person perspective and opens a pure 3D world before your eyes. The inner section of the pyramid is an actual labyrinth and making a map is quite difficult so you need to act fast and find your way in time. This impressive for its time game was followed by a sequel, Total Eclipse II: The Sphinx Jinx. Overall, Total Eclipse is an excellent, mysterious, fun and very impressive game in every aspect!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The game's 3D graphics on the Amstrad CPC are in one word amazing, although the animation is a bit slow (this is a Z80 machine anyway). Total Eclipse uses an early 3D graphics engine, the Freescape and it utilizes the CPC hardware to its best with nice colors and greatly looking environments. The sound is quite poor though, with only a few sound effects that accompany your efforts to survive, and no music tune at all, but yet this does not negatively affect the whole experience.