Sudeki

John Gillooly counters Climax's paper with some sharp scissors.

Considering the huge popularity of Knights of The Old Republic, it's surprising there aren't more RPG titles on Xbox. While the upcoming Fable holds the attention of most, Climax studio's Sudeki has shown promise throughout its development.

Sudeki has a lot of things going for it; a compelling storyline, spangly graphics, fun realtime combat and a very well designed universe. It's heavily dosed with linearity, but is structured well enough to entertain and intrigue you as you travel through the game's central setting: the Bright Empire and worlds beyond.

There are four characters that come under your control in the game: Tal the soldier; Allish the sorceress; Buki the anthropomorphic warrior and Elco the gun-slinging steam punk. Each protagonist has specific skills and weapons at their disposal.

Combat is fast and fun, with the usual RPG assortment of flamboyant special moves and magical summoning. It only falls over during boss battles in which circumstances always mean you only have one specific character to control in a very standard 'work out the pattern of attack, dodge, fire, repeat' way.

For all the good aspects to the game, it is almost crippled by this kind of reinforcement of linearity, which gets even worse when it comes to the pseudo-puzzles that are thrown in front of your team.

While each character has a unique skill, they can only be used in carefully predefined ways. For example, Allish can 'dispel' magic used to hide objects, however, these areas are always highlighted by glittery clouds. Or Elco, who has the world's most piss weak jetpack that can only move him horizontally between platforms and needs to be fuelled by crystals, which only appear at places that he can jetpack between.

That's right - this aspect is all rock, paper and scissors. While a tried and true gameplay mechanic, it needs to be implemented spectacularly to make you feel like you aren't just following the game design script.

Unfortunately Sudeki is one of those titles that suffers from horrific implementation of this kind of gameplay, which is a real shame because underneath lies some awesome combat and an intriguing fantasy world.

It's a fun experience, but purely a time filler until Fable arrives in a month or two.