Adventuring kicks off on the Xbox

By William Barker

Any game with a flying fox deserves attention...

The things that make games memorable are more often than not instantly recognisable.

Sometimes the graphics are amazingly good, or there's an intuitive control method or the game is totally non-linear or there's heaps of nakedness.

The first recognisable and intriguing aspect to Azurik, however, is the dude himself. It's like he's straight out of Tekken or Tobal, ready to kick some serious polygon ass, with his oversized poleaxe weapon, mean mofo tatts and retro goggles.

And perhaps the Xbox is in need of a mascot - Sega had Sonic, Nintendo has Mr. Mario and Sony has, um, things and stuff.

Sadly, Azurik is not likely to be the new face of the Xbox, but he does have a number of crafty tricks up his proverbial sleeve that will warrant closer inspection.

To set the scene, you play Azurik, local resident of Perathia - an alternate dimension where people have blue skin, an eclectic fashion sense and kick-ass weaponry. You are one of a small number of special guardians who have been charged with protecting the elemental stones that are interconnected with the life-force of Perathia.

You're buddy, Balthazar, went a bit koo-koo after the Guardian of Death enticed him to take the power for himself. Predictably, the weak-willed Balthazar turned to the dark side and, using the power of Death, he cast all four of Perathia's elemental stones to the far reaches of the land.

Now you, as Azurik, must return the stones of Earth, Wind, Water and Fire to their rightful place, or be destined to write poorly scripted plots for the rest of eternity.

So, the quest has been laid before you, but what now? The plot, while paper thin, does make for a rather cool premise. You see, each time you collect a piece of one of the stones - which incidentally were smashed into itsy-bitsy pieces - you'll be able to harness that element via your poleaxe.

Why so blue?

At it's most basic, Azurik: Rise of Perathia is a 3D platformer, with an emphasis on 'slice' and also 'dice'. Thrown into the fray are a number of interesting puzzles to solve, which could potentially annoy the bejesus out of you, getting in the way of all the combat. Alternatively, you may see them as a great way to unravel the plot - it all depends on your personal view of things, I guess.

For me, the puzzles didn't get annoying - the backtracking and traipsing about all over the shop did, which go hand-in-hand with many of the 'thinking' aspects.

So, while they're well thought out and some are even innovative and fun in some cases, the backtracking does get a little tiresome, particularly when you consider that Perathia is one of the bigger dimensions going round.

Before you can even attempt to solve one of the game's puzzles, which usually impede your progress, you'll get to mess around with some fairly weak enemies.

Azurik is quite the foe, and for the early parts of the game keen gamers will find it easygoing. Some of this is due to the below-average AI of some of the nasties found in Perathia, but for the most part they'll put up an honest fight.

With a number of moves at your disposal, Azurik is very reminiscent of Soul Calibur's Kilik. He has a good strike range and has a wide range of moves, from quick jabs, to wide, sweeping, spinning combos. He tonks, he bonks, he smashes, he crashes, he slices and dices and then you get to play around with the elements.

Water, for instance, works in both a combat and a puzzle-solving sense, because not only are your hits now stronger and much colder, but you can enter areas that were once sealed with walls of fire, for example.

You will also have to mix and match elements to open up new areas, and while most of them are logical, there are a few instances where the only way to progress (short of downloading a walkthrough) is the old trial and error method.

Combat with the fire element equipped

Dishing out the pain is a fairly enjoyable task, and the control setup is fairly intuitive so most will welcome this. Taking a third-person perspective, the floating camera can be a bit of pain, though there are amble camera manipulation tools, which will lessen the grief somewhat.

As far as the artistic aspects of sound and graphics go, Azurik is pretty much on top of his game. Like was mentioned earlier, he is one cool-looking cat, and though his rather dry personality doesn't help, his very shiny poleaxe weapon does.

The detailing on most humanoid characters, particularly Azurik, is well above average, but some of the baddies leave a lot to be desired.

Level design is good, if unnecessarily grandiose. Some levels are big for the sake of being big, where everything could have been made more compact, getting rid of the pesky 'backtracking' theme. I guess it's kind of nice that enemies respawn then, because all your exploring would get pretty inane fairly quickly.

Grass, rock and water textures are of a high quality, but we've seen better in games like Amped and Halo. The frame rate is nice, perhaps about 30fps, and the motion capture used on Azurik makes all his moves appear natural and lithe. Pity the same can't be said for the enemy animations…

At the end of the day, it's easy to see that Adrenium Games has tried very hard in creating a unique 3D adventure for the Xbox. The game has many merits, such as the combat engine, combining elemental powers for devastating effect, the colourful eye candy and the traditional adventure elements of unravelling the plot through your actions.

Still, there are a few areas that should've been more polished, and while these things aren't huge issues - a bit of play testing would have them sorted in no time. Azurik will appeal to those who enjoy peppy third-person adventure games and fantasy aficionados will really dig the realm of Perathia too.

Game: Azurik: Rise of Perathia
System: Xbox
Players: 1
Memory Card: Yes
Developer: Adrenium Games
Distributor: Microsoft

Rating: 70%

(Ratings Key/Explantion)

Azurik: Rise of Perathia is on the shelves now.