Short Video Game Review.

My latest completed game is this one.

Sacred Plus for PC CDROM. An RPG by Ascaron.

It's easily reviewed in three short words - Generic, Boring and Repetitive.

First of all it looks OK. A Diablo style 2.5D world with none of those horrible third person 3D shenanigans that are impossible to control and make me feel ill.

The storyline is the usual type of nonsense for this type of thing. A world in danger when an ancient magic is released etc etc. I lost interest in the plot very very quickly.

It's easy enough to get into and all though it initially looks complicated it's not really. The interface is fine with quick select buttons in all the proper places.

The bad points are numerous i'm afraid. 'A massive world' it says on the box. It's not. Considering i completed the game with only 39% discovered is testament to that. A big proportion of the map is covered by inaccessible forest which limits your movement somewhat.

There are numerous side quests but they do quickly become very boring. 'Save my daughter who has been kidnapped by Orcs' type affairs. Problem is that they are far too easy. After levelling up a bit they are all the same. Kill a lot of random characters, nick the weapons etc they drop move on to the next similar quest....ho..hum.

There are also numerous glitches in the game. Quests that don't register as completed (even though they are) is a particular irritant.

AI is also hit and miss. Some enemies will just stand idly by whilst you pick them off from a distance, not moving even with 5 arrows stuck in them.

Another problem is that by about half way through you have the best weapon and it can't be upgraded any more and end up having to pick up 100's of inferior items just in case something worth buying might eventually appear in one of the shops.

The magic system seems to be tacked on with very little thought or imagination. You don't have to use it anyway as by the time you actually need it you have a strong enough weapon to cope with anything the game throws at you.

It ends with a wimper. The legend 'To be continued' is displayed. Somebody kill me...please!!!!

In all, very disappointing. And to think i wasted almost 40 hours on this. That BTW is not because the game is challenging, just that i'm shit at games.