Every now and then I think about the statistically determined average age of a gamer – what is it now, 36, 37? Please, always keep it under 40 – and I realize with concern that, by extrapolation, many people reading this probably have children. Ouch, children! Please excuse me while I go stand on a chair, holding a broom. I have never understood the craze for generating smaller versions of oneself. It is one of those strangest subcultures that you read about in the newspapers but rarely observe in everyday life.
I do, however, understand the appeal of same-screen co-op games like Run From Mummies – which, being a bloodless dungeon comedy, seems like a good choice for those burdened by noisy spawn. Don't worry, the “mummies” of the title are just disemboweled corpses wrapped in cloth, not those sinister, unembalmed “mothers” you've heard of in grocery stores.
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Run From Mummies is an archaeology game, much like Whack-A-Mole, a game about moles. You and up to three friends play as tourists trapped in a giant pyramid filled with roaming undead, spike traps, and laser-beam statue bosses. Your only weapon is a camera: you can stun inhospitable relics and disrupt other objects with the flash, which is probably a useful metaphor for the effects of tourism on archaeological sites in general. To take a photo, you have to stand still while an AOE triangle extends from your feet, so try not to do this while running away from a rolling boulder.
There's a demo of Run From Mummies on Steam. The full game spans seven regions connected by hand-drawn cutscenes that have a reasonable Two Point energy. There are apparently “secrets” and “lore” to be discovered, but while I can live with probing layouts for sliding walls, I'm not sure the point of a game like this is to dig through the codex. It reminds me a bit of the Sega Dreamcast classic Power Stone, except it's top-down and 2D. Half the fun will undoubtedly be getting in each other's way.
Too cartoonish for your taste? I'm guessing you have older kids, ten to twenty, “teens” if you will, who find 2D very cheesy, Mom. Maybe they'll be happier with the new Indiana Jones game. It's fully 3D, with the best polygons Microsoft can squeeze out of all the programmer brains they have stored in the basement. It also has a photography mechanic where the goal is to take pictures of things, rather than give hungry skeletons a fit. A bit wacky, but let's see where it goes.