Are you old enough to remember Gauntlet? I remember going down to Timezone, pilling coin after coin into the slot and simply playing for hours. Even if you were playing by yourself, you could safely bet that someone would join you eventually. You’d laugh, you’d cry, and most importantly, you’d have fun playing an excellent example of what co-operative multiplayer is all about. Black Stone by Xicat tries to capture this sense of fun and co-operation, and succeeds in doing so to a point. That point is that it is now 2003, no longer the mid 1980s, and we’ve been spoilt with intelligent storylines, robust gameplay, superb graphics and excellent audio in other games that Gauntlet simply can’t hope to live up to, and, unfortunately, neither does Black Stone.

The intro of this game is AMAZING, and after watching I just thought, “wow, this game is going to be good!” I guess that’s what intros are for. This wonderful piece of CGI looks like something out of Final Fantasy, as beautifully rendered hoards of orcs run towards their death at the hand of a fighter, a wizard, and thief as a hard electric rock theme plays over the top of it. Now, if the game looked like this, it would be one of the best hack and slash games available today. Unfortunately this is horribly spoilt by the start screen, which looks like something from an Amiga game, and it doesn’t get much better after that.

The story, told through static yet colourful storyboards, is that a thousand years after their defeat at Zedan, the dark mages hiding within the Tower of Babylon have grown very powerful. They start stealing the inhabitants of Zedan’s souls through weakening the Holy Light. They did this by waking the ancient volcano, Moon-eye. The leader of the dark mages Xylon has collected pieces of the Black Stone, and threatens the lands’ very existence. You and your friends have to save it. Or something like that.

Jumping straight into the game, you choose your character from 5 different classes – Warlock, Fighter, Thief, Archer and Pirate. Each class has different strengths and weaknesses, and its up to you to chose how you want to play. The Warlock and Archer are missile weapon fighters, whilst Thief, Fighter and Pirate are melee specialists. You can chose from two different characters out of each class, and there are 2 unlockables for each class, but there is no difference between the characters within a class in terms of strengths and so forth. However, each character does have different special moves, which are all of relatively the same power, but each look different.

The first level adjusts you to the gameplay. You move using the left joystick, and melee attack with the A button, missile attack with the X button, use magic scrolls with the B button. The left trigger is an avoid/dodge move, while the right trigger charges up your magic, which decreases every time you shoot a missile weapon. Holding the right trigger and pushing melee attack does one special move, and pressing the melee attack button whilst running (holding the joystick down) does another special move. The object of this level, and all subsequent levels, is to progress through, killing all the monsters and their generators; smashing open all the crates; and unlocking all the chests. Magic Scrolls, gold and food (health) are hidden in the chests, as well as temporary power ups, such as Multi Shot and Invincibility, but beware, there are also curses such as the Pig Curse, which disables your fighting ability, and poisoned foods. There are also animals you can ride on, much like in the old favourite “Golden Axe”, and these pack one hell of a punch, but disappear after too short a while.

At the end of every 3 or so levels is a Bad Boss. This is a creature that is a little harder to kill than your run-off-the-mill goblin, as it has more powerful and ranged attacks that it shoots off at you rapidly. After that, you have a Big Bad Boss, who generally takes up half the screen, shoots all manner of mayhem at you, as well as sends monsters for you to be attacked by, and can only bit hit when it’s in a certain position. There are certain items collected during previous levels which reduce these creatures hit points but it’s still a tough fight.

In between each level, a summary of all that you’ve killed and found is displayed, and either gain a credit, used to continue if you die, or unlock a character. Here you will also get to spend your gold on Magic Scrolls, keys, greater sword attacks, more overall hit points, and Elementals, which float around you shooting off bolts of elemental stuff in which ever way you are moving. You can also save or load a game here. In an unfortunate oversight, it is ONLY here that you can have another player join you – no joining in mid game, which means when your friend comes over you’ll have to either restart the level losing all progress, or wait until you’ve completed the level.

The gameplay is pretty fast and relentless, and that’s cool if you like that, but with 26 levels all practically the same it becomes rather old, quickly. Building up your character is fun, but at even at lower levels they all play pretty much the same. The camera can become annoying as it is stuck in a certain position, and you have no control over it. It obscures things at best, and hinders you at worst. The game seems to have some weird auto aim that causes you to shoot in an entirely different direction to what you want to, and has difficulty firing and attacking on the diagonals. I did think it was just me until two of my friends said the same thing. Multiplayer is fun, but again the camera angles can get in the way, and as you are all on the screen at the same time, you can only move when you are all heading in the same direction. This bites when you unlock a chest and it pops out with needed food, but you just can’t reach it because the others are fighting monsters on the other side. It is also a pain when your allies steal you food / gold/ power-up. Then again, it was the same in Gauntlet, so you really need to use teamwork in order to get the most out of it.

The graphics are lacklustre at best, and simply don’t push the Xbox at all, which after the opening credits is a tremendous let down. The sound is simply atrocious. The music isn’t too bad, but there’s no option to put your own in, which again ignores the power of the Xbox. But the sound effects, my gosh, they are just simply BAD. It was like they were recorded for the commodore 64 and given echo effects, with some of the sounds being as annoying as fingernails on a blackboard. Moreover, they don’t suit the action. You fire off a Warlock’s magic sphere, and it sounds more like a pinball hitting a bumper than a ball of powerful destructive magic. It was a real shock to me that the sound was so bad, and I’m so glad I haven’t invested in 5.1 surround speakers yet!

Overall Black Stone isn’t a bad game, it’s just simply not a good one. It’s a rip off of an old game, with a couple of elements from other old games, but doesn’t improve on them, nor does it use the power of the Xbox in any way, shape or form. Multiplayer is fun and adds to the games value and playability, but it’s just too repetitive to keep your interest longer than a week, especially with the other, more quality, hack and slash games about.

Positives:

Its gauntlet for the new millennium!

AWESOME introduction.

Multi-player havoc abounds.

Negatives

It doesn’t move very far away from the original gauntlet gameplay, which is nearly 20 years old, and it shows.

It’s very repetitive, even for a hack and slash.

Graphics are PS2 standard or worse.

Sounds are simply atrocious.

6.5/10