The game is made all the more chilling by the music, wonderful pieces which add an uneasy tension to Laura's wanderings – but the game's score also manages to deliver some very engaging tunes more in the style of the roaring '20s when it has to. A third factor which will help get your blood running is the fact that Laura can die very frequently, and often unexpectedly. If you've played a Sierra game from this era, you probably already have an opinion on the "sudden death syndrome"; otherwise, you'll make up your mind fast enough. I therefore will not enter the debate, and just advise you to save early (the first death scene occurs on the second screen) and save often (there are reportedly eighteen different ways of killing everyone's favourite nosy reporter). To which I'll add: save on different slots, as the game sometimes produces corrupt, unusable savegames. And also: save while you can, as the CD version has a tendency to disable access to the save/load panel randomly (and usually at the most awkward of times) – after all, no Sierra game would feel complete without a handful of ugly bugs.

If only these issues were the defining factors of quality in The Dagger of Amon Ra. But graphics, music, bugs… like red herrings drawing the investigator away from the central mystery, the game's high production values (and not-so-minor quirks) threaten to distract me from the "secret of the failed sequel", which I meant to elucidate here. A first clue was already given, though. Did you catch it? Have you been wondering why all those people, including Laura, were spending the night in the museum instead of going home when one of the curators has just been found dead? If you have: congratulations, you have the makings of a real sleuth. And if you haven't, you can console yourself by knowing that this gives you a chance of actually enjoying The Dagger of Amon Ra. For the game provides no answer to that question. People get killed, but that never stops the characters from doing whatever it is they're doing. By the end of the game, there's a body in almost every room but, when asked about that, one of the characters just answers "Err... Murders? Oh, I guess somebody did mention that." What can I say? The game is chilling, and builds tension well, but the characters just don't care – obviously this would have required too great an alteration of their meagre psychological profiles.

And not caring about the plot is not something limited to the characters; it affected the designers too. Bruce Balfour and Roberta Williams seem to have thrown in every line, scene, and plot element that looked interesting, surprising, or simply fun to them, while neglecting to fit them all together into a cohesive structure – and often while failing to notice that what they were adding was just a tired cliché. Plot holes and inconsistencies abound, from the main plot itself to details of clothing; from the characters constantly contradicting themselves for no good reason to Laura being unsure what time of the year the story takes place. The game can't even keep track of where its characters are, some being nowhere in sight for most of the night, appearing only when needed, while others are literally in three places at the same time. While merely depressing in retrospect, this infuriating carelessness borders on insulting when you are wracking your brain trying to solve the mystery. It was fairly early on in the night, as consistency was once again sacrificed to introduce yet another unoriginal red herring laced with a bad pun, that I started having the nagging feeling that the whole game was just a bad joke made at my expense – a bitter doubt that would remain with me to the end.

Making a murder mystery that manages to be intellectually stimulating, while not frustrating those of us who don't have Hercule Poirot's little grey cells, is a daunting task. The Colonel's Bequest succeeded thanks to three design decisions: it involved a rather simple mystery, it allowed the player to reach a satisfactory ending without having figured out everything, and it then explained the central plot to the player while encouraging replays. The Dagger of Amon Ra chose to do the exact opposite. And it did not work.

The plot is quite complicated, with several branches, not to mention many red herrings, and some of the most vital pieces of information can easily be missed. Furthermore, the game concludes with a series of questions asking Laura to name the murderer(s) and give their motives, as well as the dagger's thief and other miscellany. Should you make a single mistake, even something as ridiculous as, say, selecting "fear" instead of "cover another crime" as the motive for this or that murder, you will lose, and the game will offer you nothing more for your failure than harsh words and the right to start again from the beginning – or to refer to a walkthrough. Should you decide to cheat, be sure to refer to something that tries to explain the plot, for the game will certainly not do it for you. Actually, to this day, the precise motives and circumstances of some of the murders remain largely mysterious to me. Why a game that has such a shaky grip over its plot should feel allowed to be so demanding is beyond me – and was an unforgivable design mistake, leading the player into hopeless frustration.

And yet, should you succeed, The Dagger of Amon Ra has a brilliant conclusion, one of those (few and far between) moments of grace when the plot's flaws manage to disappear behind the game's artistic qualities and witty writing, showing what this sad farce of a game might ideally have been. My, what a sorry mess... What a sad, sad waste of talent... What to make of this game? If you think you can play it as just a typical Sierra game, with great music and graphics, clever writing, and some fun gameplay elements, and are not interested at all in trying to figure out the plot, then please do give it a try. But if you want a good murder mystery that doesn't insult your intelligence with lazy design... Well, just replay The Colonel's Bequest.