This is a lovely looking game with fun combat and good RPG mechanics. You'll need to download 2 patches to get it running properly, but well worth it.

A really neat, fun, enjoyable game. I love role playing games set in this kind of setting, and although this isn't an RPG I'm still enjoying it. It's basically a first person shooter, with some RPG elements, set in a medieval/sword and sorcery type of world, which I'm a real sucker for. I'm also a sucker for really hot girls who flatter my ego.

The only problem is the performance. It's the Half Life 2 engine, but don't expect it to run as well as HL 2. That game runs flawlessly on my machine but this runs a bit sluggishly most of the time, and crawls in one or two areas. I don't know how fast a machine you have to have to get it to run well but mine was fairly grunty when the game came out.

The performance detracts from my enjoyment a little bit but it's still a worthwhile game to play. And if you happen to love sexy demon girls like I do you'll love it.

Built on the half life two engine but not half as good, this game was a big disappointment. HL2 ran perfectly on my machine but playing this meant a buggy experience; the most annoying example being that the scripted voice acting of the Cortana rip-off ‘lady in my head’ kept blurting out garbage at random, when the whole thing was not simply falling apart.

At times the graphics were lush – the orcs look very good and move smoothly, and the cliffside dwellings are one of the best RPG environments I’ve ever seen.

The skill development system is rubbish; it adds nothing but a kind of pretend RPG element which detracts in a linear game. I developed a character with a mix of skills just to see what the spells and weapons look like (you cant even heft a weapon if you don’t have the strength ‘skill’) and found that pretty soon I was too weak to kill anything much. And do you think I wanted to go right back to the start and make different skill choices in a linear game once I'd done all that boring switch finding and seen the set pieces?

The introduction of some clever physics-driven tricks like kicking enemies into spikes was pretty ho-hum at times, especially given your enemies had the not-recommended habit of standing next to the spikes (or under the massive rickety wooden platform straining to hold up lots of very heavy things). None of which leaves you feeling like you've interacted with the environment in a satisfying way. The rope bow was the pick of these sorts of physics-based ideas and was fun to play around with for a short while.