Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Review

Combat seems fairly interesting at first, but after a while it tends to get really tiresome, although the enemies do differ. The bad thing is that your concentration will inevitably fall and, as a result, your character may get killed, so you will have to repeat the last chapter all over again. While the division into chapters serves for rounding up the story rather than splitting it, it is sometimes tiresome to repeat your actions several times in a row only because of a sudden lack of... concentration. (Ed. - Okay okay, I admit it, that beastly troll cold-cocked with an axe when I wasn't looking, so what? It could happen to anyone.) The boss fights bring some light into this dark tunnel filled with innumerable monsters. Boss battles sometimes require nerves as they can take quite a long time, some bosses even require a different approach, like using certain moves, so take care you're armed with a lot of patience.

The bloated monster died because it was gassy. It was a mess, I tell you.

So what do you think, should we push him off the cliff or stick him on a blade?

Although the battles take place in some cleverly designed levels on many settings from Forgotten Realms and with some nicely animated enemies, there is something that ruins the seemingly ideal settings for the violent and messy battles, and that is the camera. The creators of the game have obviously decided for a cinematic over a truly useful look, so there are some instances where it won't be clear what you're doing and where you're going. This doesn't ruin the game, but is certainly irritating on some occasions. Apart from that, the game excels in the visual segment. The character models are detailed, well-modeled and nicely animated, the graphics are gorgeous and colorful (though the textures are sometimes somewhat blurry and smudgy), and the enemies are very distinctive-looking. You won't have much time to enjoy your surroundings though, due to the rather frantic course of the battles. After performing a certain task or killing a certain number of enemies, another area will open so you'll have to rush and seek your fortune there, which leaves you with the feeling that the levels are very small.

There are also occasional problems with the clipping, so the characters would end up stuck in a wall or stand in thin air instead on a platform, but fortunately this didn't happen too often and when it did, it wasn't serious.

As for the sound, I really have no complaints about it. The sound effects were very high quality, and the voiceovers are excellent. The ambient sounds are very convincing and realistic, creating the right atmosphere and deepening the feeling of a living world. The background music fits the game well. I guess I should mention the voice of the wizard Blackstaff who is responsible for the original imprisoning of the game's villains belongs to none other than Patrick Stewart, who is also the principle narrator.

To conclude, Demon Stone is a fairly good game although not in any way spectacular. On the other hand, the flood of the last year's military shooters also wasn't very spectacular - well, at least not in the good sense of the word, so we shouldn't discard this title just for that. The feeling I got while playing this game was that something was missing - I guess all the elements were there, they just didn't seem to work right. I loved the game's graphics but hated the camera angles and the occasional clipping issues. The characters looked promising, but instead they turned out to be one-dimensional and without character. I certainly do not mind some good hack'n'slash action, but I do mind the obvious lack of more advanced RPG elements. The character development system left me unsatisfied and with a feeling there was a lot more room for progress. The lack of a proper inventory is not a real downside, but the lack of a more detailed character development system certainly is. Then again, although the story develops in a satisfying manner (and is narrated beautifully by Patrick Stewart), it is something I have heard at least thousands of millions of times. The combat is simple and not very diverse, but nevertheless it seems to work out for most part, although it could have used more diversity. The game is also rather short, which is both good and bad; it's bad because... well, because *I* say it's bad; and good, because you'll get sick of that linear hack-and-slash action.

I guess that the fans of the Forgotten Realms will find more appeal in Demon Stone than I did. I do not wish to indicate that Demon Stone is a bad game for anyone except Forgotten Realms fans, but it is simply not good enough. Being short and with no multiplayer it can offer you a several hours' fun, and that is not an entirely bad way to spend your time. You will get some solid, exciting action and the wish to find some dark corners and become invisible, which may result in slicing your postman's throat or performing a jumping attack on your house plant. And just how bad is that? (Rd. - It depends, is it an EVIL house plant?)