Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow

16 cert, Konami, Xbox 360 (also PS3)

Although the setting and some character design will be familiar to fans of the Castlevania series, this is closer to third-person combat games. Playing as a warrior, you embark on a violent quest of rescue and revenge. There are a variety of blade- based weapons at your disposal, and you’ll need ’em all. This poor guy can’t walk a few yards without being assaulted by everything from goblins to werewolves. Patrick Stewart provides the plumy narration, and the graphics are great, especially the creature design. It’s also quite playable, with intuitive combat controls that get incrementally sophisticated as the game progresses. However, it is slightly repetitive in a hack-and-slash kind of way, but a greater flaw is that it’s bloody difficult! If I wasn’t reviewing the game I would have given up by Chapter 3.