You are Locke D’Averam – a mighty warrior resurrected from the dead to fight a mysterious cult that has ruined the land of Akhuilon. You have at your disposal a number of weapons and spells as you sally forth to do battle, rescue damsels and chat up the townsfolk whenever the mood seizes you. Welcome to Revenant, Eidos’ Diablo clone released in the late nineties!

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then the folks at Blizzard must be drowning in the stuff. Diablo added a new dimension to RPG gaming with its simple interface and accent on action. More importantly, it sold millions of copies, spawned a successful sequel and a couple of handy expansion packs. Consequently, rarely a year passes without someone attempting to capture the Diablo magic in a new bottle (or jewel case, as the case may be!). And if you don’t believe me, just take a look at Throne of Darkness, Prince of Qin, and more recently, Dungeon Siege!

To give Eidos (or Cinematrix- after all, they are the developers) credit, Revenant is not an out and out Diablo copy. Most of the action is hack and slash but there are a few nifty tucks and trims that could have made the game a classic. Note the ‛could have’ carefully, for the biggest sentiment one gets while playing the game is regret for what might have been!

But to tackle first things first - the installation. The game comes on a couple of CDs and if you have a Windows XP machine, I would advise you to hunt down the latest patches before you go in for an install. Without the patches, you will have a torrid time attempting to read the text on the screen (of course, you could play it entirely by ear but as this is a game based in an exotic land, the accents can be a tad hard to follow!). The game played smoothly after being patched, although it insisted on asking for Disc 2 whenever it started up – this when the disc was already in the drive. If you get a similar problem, just click ‛OK’ and carry on.

The plot in Revenant is based on the good old hero-saves-town-in-distress-by-bashing-evil formula. However, as I mentioned earlier there is more than one neat spin in the storyline. To start with, in best Bourne Identity tradition, the hero does not actually know who he (no, there are no female options) is. He is a Revenant – one raised from the dead – with a rather sketchy memory of what happened in his previous life. And it was a colourful previous life, if the opening cinematicis any indication. But getting back to his present life (into which he appears dressed in a pair of skimpy white shorts), he is named Locke D’Averam by the wizard who resurrected him – a bearded Merlinesque figure called Sardok – and is told that he must serve Lord Tendrick, the head of the House of Averam. The service package includes defeating the evil Cult of Change that has afflicted the kingdom of Akhuilon and rescuing the Lord’s daughter from its practitioners.

The adventure begins from that stage. Locke travels extensively in search of the Lord’s daughter, confronting an assortment of strange creatures (spiders, centaurs, giants, ninjas - you name it!)and waging battle in theatres that vary from forests to dungeons. There are weapons, armour and spells galore and even a hand-to-hand battle with a huge enemy who seems inspired by the WWE wrestlers. As Locke gets nearer to his objective, he learns more about himself and even starts getting disturbing information about those he is serving, Sardok in particular.

Revenant’s story is its greatest strength. The game spins a riveting yarn and the fact that there are several non-playing characters to chatter with only adds to the fun. Unlike some of the sombre chaps seen in most hack and slash games, Locke does display a sense of humour from time to time – bantering with semi-clad tavern dancers and scaring the wits out of other folk. It is to the developers’ credit that there times when one almost feels sad for Locke – a man who does not know who he is, seen as some kind of undead spirit by common people, and risking life and limb for masters whose sincerity seems to be in doubt.

The gameplay itself is relatively simple. Movement is controlled by arrow keys or the mouse and one can interact with people by clicking on them and choosing what one wants to say from different options. Combat is largely on the lines of Diablo – all one needs to do is click on the enemy. There are however a few stylish manoeuvres thrown in – so a certain key combination will see Locke execute a couple of quick thrusts and then top things off with a kick that would do Jackie Chan proud. Locke also has the option of parrying blows, if he is in a defensive mood – something Diablo could have done with. Magic is however a bit more complex. You have to collect certain magical stones and then use them in certain combinations (revealed by scrolls which you will find in the course of your travels). Be warned though - spells may not always be successful so it makes sense to keep a weapon handy. A nice touch to combat is the inclusion of stamina as a factor – if you keep trying to land heavy blows, you will find yourself getting tired out more rapidly. So in order to succeed you need to strike a decent balance between brute force and magic. There is also a huge inventory to lug stuff around, although there are times when it gets plain unmanageable.

Locke’s character attributes comprise strength, constitution, agility, reflexes, luck and mind. Every time Locke goes up a level, he gets a few extra points which he can distribute among the attributes he wants to boost up. The addition of luck is a neat touch and believe me, it can make a difference. I once pumped up Locke’s luck and he kept finding all kinds of useful stuff ranging from fruit to cash all over the place. His life and mana holding capacity also goes up every time he ascends a level. While taking blows from adversaries lessens his life, he can boost it up by eating food and drinking potions. Mana exhausted by magic spells can be similarly built up. Incidentally, it is interesting to know how the foodtsuffs in Revenant conform to stereotype – fish boosts mana while bread boosts life! While on the subject of food, there is lots of it going around – from sausages to grapes to chocolates and muffins. Locke can either get it off adversaries or buy it from the market or ...horror of horrors...steal it!

Locke’s adversaries are an exotic lot. They vary from huge creatures like Ogroks to conventional Dragons to some rather strange ninja-like warriors who kick and stab with gay abandon. The ‛boss’ enemies are typically huge and have greater resources. And just to show that there is good to be found even in the most evil person, most adversaries end up leaving food, potions or money when they pass away. Very charitable, although I must confess that the thought of ninjas dying and leaving muffins did make me giggle! Locke is pretty well-equipped to deal with all comers. He can pick up weapons and armour from the market, learn new moves from the local swordmaster (who wears a Chinese hat and lives in a Dojo – I told you it was an exotic world) and even gets the odd special weapon from time to time. Add that to the magic spells and stones, and you have enough to put up a decent fight even against the biggest of the ‛bosses’.

The game serves up some rather decent graphics – the action sequences in combat are an absolute treat. The background music is easy on the ear and the voice acting generally good, although some of it does sound a bit contrived.

So where does Revenant trip up? Unfortunately, in several places. To begin with, there is just too much fighting. Even the most hardened sword-happy fan will admit that there are times when one would simply like a quiet stroll through the woods. Such moments are few and far between in Revenant. If you are not in the town, there is a fair chance that a bloody encounter is just around the corner. As if that were not enough, some of the adversaries respawn when you return to a location. Now, that can be extremely frustrating. There was this place in the dungeon where I bumped off a couple of Ninjas and a fire-spewing wizard but they were back whenever I returned to that particular section. Sure, killing them got me some chocolate, a fish and a muffin but it was hardly worth the frustration. In some of the bigger battlefields, you can avoid battle by going around enemies but in more constricted areas, it is either kill or ‛load saved game’.

The game’s linear nature also does not help matters. Although Locke can say a number of different things, he does have too much choice about what to do. So if he wants an entry to the tunnels, he had to fight the Ogrok champion – no chance of buying his way through. There are occasions when Locke has to operate some levers to open a secret door. Nothing wrong with that – except that he has no idea that he has to search for a lever! I often ended up spending hours stumbling through a labyrinth in search of something that would help me progress with respawning monsters blocking my path – not my idea of a good time. You can go back to town using special pathways but even these are awkwardly located and not much help. And if you think that talking to non-playing characters will help you find your way, forget it!

The capacious inventory is another headache. Some wise guy thought that adding pouches in which Locke could store stuff would be a good idea. The result is that one has to choose between scrolling endlessly between items to locate what one is looking for or store different articles in pouches and then spend time opening each pouch to see its contents. You see, the wise guy provided no way of labelling the pouches! Of course, some stuff and spells can accessed through hotkeys but given the variety of foodstuffs of magic, these are just not enough! I wish I had a penny for every time I ended up scrabbling through the inventory in search of a refreshing slice of watermelon even as a dragon concentrated on burning Locke’s trousers off his person!

Finally, there are the bugs. The game freezes inexplicably at times and at others simply shuts down – it could be an XP issue but that is not much comfort. The game also becomes jerky at some places, although it plays very smoothly on Windows 98.

Revenant is a bit like a meal that has made out of interesting ingredients but has been poorly cooked. Consequently some portions taste delectable while others are plain inedible.

Revenant could have been a classic. Sadly, it ends up as a case study that proves that even the best story can be undone by poor gameplay.

Final Score: 55%

System requirements:

• Pentium 233 Processor or Equivalent
• Windows 95/98
• 32 MB RAM
• 400 MB Uncompressed HD Space
• DirectX 6.1 or higher (included)
• 8X CD-ROM
• 100% DirectX 6.1 or higher compliant 8 MB Video Card
• 100% DirectX 6.1 or higher compliant Sound Card
• Keyboard and Mouse