Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone

8.6
Great

Gameplay	8.0	"Though touted as an RPG Demon Stone is simply a straigh-up hack 'n'..."
Graphics	9.0
Sound	8.0
Value	7.0

By Mayur Gandhi

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The Dungeons and Dragons franchise is no stranger to videogames. With titles like NeverWinter Nights and Baldur's Gate under its belt fans grow giddy every time a new title is announced. So for once when Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone was said to be a non RPG action game some fans were worried at the deviation from the slower paced genre the franchise had followed. But now as the game is released all fears can thankfully be placed to rest, Demon Stone is an excellent game.

As with most adventure and fantasy novels the game is put together in a magical world with three brave heroes banding together for a common cause. That cause is to rid of the two powerful enemies, Githyanki General Sereka and Slaad Lord Ygorl, leaders of opposing demonic armies who have returned to unleash a violent war across the plains of innocent folk. A century prior to this the two enemies fought restlessly in a forest where a wizard by the name of BlackStaff (who is voiced by Patrick Stewart) imprisoned them both in the Demon Stone. Without a leader to control the invasion against humanity the war receded and peace was restored.

Our heroes come in the form of Rannek the Fighter, a man mourning the loss of his village whilst he could do nothing to save it. Illius the Sorceror, travelling to Damara after choosing Sorcery as a way of life, thus earning the disownment by his family. And Zhai, a half dark-elf and half drow whose stealth and wit really does steal the show.

Their motivation for stopping this evil is the fact that they unwittingly unleashed it upon the earth again. Thus begins their epic quest to return the villains back to the Demon Stone and restore order to the world again. Though very much sounding like an RPG this is anything but. Those familiar with The Two Towers and Return of the King will feel right at home with this button mashing extravaganza. There are few RPG elements such as upgrading character attributes but these do very little to add to the gameplay experience as the bonuses aren't often felt.

Though in many aspects similar to the Lord of the Rings games this one does not feel like a complete rehash, its look and story do make it feel like a fresh new game in its own right. Some of the enhancements come in the need to switch between your three heroes as each have their own strengths which certain occasions will call for. It is still possible to get through using just one hero but from a strategic standpoint it makes more sense to use the switching method. This becomes apparent in the final stages of the game where the difficulty becomes unrelentingly hard, in order to survive, you need to switch.

Unfortunately, when your teammates are controlled by the AI they can prove to be incredibly unhelpful. For the most part they won't make a significant contribution to destroying your many enemies and in a lot of instances they'll launch almost pathetic attacks on the last enemy so that you are forced to take them out in order for the game to progress. You'll also need to protect them a fair bit as they don't seem to have been programmed with a block function. On the flipside it actually adds to the difficulty and makes the action more intense as it's a fight to survive and make sure your comrades survive too.

Combat is simple enough, tap the X button as many times as possible and quickly as possible and your foes will be biting the dust. Even once you've upgraded your skills to the max it's still the same, tap X, kill enemy, walk away victorious. It's just when you're swarmed with enemies does this prove to be harder than it sounds.

If there is anything that Demon Stone lacks the most is the inclusion of multiplayer. It would have been perfect for this title and would have added tremendously to replay value. Perhaps developer�s StormFront are going for The Two Towers approach which had no multiplayer but its sequel, Return of the King did, maybe they hope to include it in a sequel should Demon Stone sell well enough.

With that said however the game's presentation is impeccable. From the artistic cut-scenes, to the fantastically rendered and lifelike back drops this game oozes with shear visual bliss. Shadowing and lighting effects are heavy and look great on the aging PS2, it's because of games like this that people are still buying the console. With an Xbox and PC version on the way I cannot wait to see how much prettier this game can get.

Graphics are great but without a great soundtrack the beauty can be lost. Demon Stone doesn't lose anything here at all. With the grinding bass from rocks hitting the earth to the award worthy vocal soundtrack Demon Stone provides some impressive high production audio which is as good as, if not better, than the graphics themselves.

You can find Demon Stone on the shelves of all good NZ Gamestores right now so if you're up for a good action packed romp through a richly detailed fantastical world it's definately worth picking up.

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