So anyway, you got your evil Prince Shaddar, resident of Shaddar-Nuir (sounds like a posh brand of fine coffee, actually means 'tower of darkness'), Wanderer in the Realm of Shadow, a descendant of Morgast who apparently once "drowned the land in the blood of countless innocent victims" right? Now, being a dark magician and somewhat predisposed to dabbling in the black arts, well he's conjured a Sakkara demon who's a grumpy bastard and likes to drink the wretched souls of the living as though it were apple Tango (come on you at the back, stop slouching and please do try to take an interest!).

Now, said Sakkara demon is a bit handy in a ruck and gives Shaddar a ruddy good hiding for his efforts, then sets about stirring up orcs, goblins, bandits and other denizens of the underworld, who are beginning to take a few too many liberties at the expense of the good and fair people of Ancaria... something's just got to give - good King Aarnum needs someone with a big chopper to get on with cracking a few bad eggs and that someone could and really should be you.

   

I'll concede that Sacred isn't about to win any gongs for original plot in the Weird Beard category, but then I'm not entirely sure that really matters. Ascaron Entertainment clearly perceived a gap in the action-oriented RPG market this year and felt they were up to the job of filling it. I'm inclined to agree with them. What we have here is the archetypal dark horse (more on those later) - Sacred may well satisfy the cravings of the slavering, sweaty palmed hoard of Diablo 2 fans a little too well for Blizzard's comfort.

This is loosely hack and slash territory, but with just a light seasoning of original ideas implemented with enough panache to give Sacred a real edge. We're talking a big, open and inherently explorable world inhabited by lots of chatty NPCs and composed of little villages, well equipped towns and cities, dark and forbidding forests, dank, dripping caves and randomly stumbled upon dungeons in which to crawl in search of treasure. With scope to while away the hours indulging in a myriad of sub quests to supplement the progress of the main story, there is much freedom here. 70% of the world is open to you right from the off, so one should never feel hemmed in.

There's combat moves and magic attacks that can be chained together to form big fat, sword swirling multi-hit, megadeath dealing combos at a single mouse click, there are horses that can be purchased to get you from point A to B in double quick time, or indeed to aid you in nimble range and melee combat on the hoof - or in the case of a confrontation with an orc swarm, to run away quick sharpish.

For a game seemingly in attendance at the somewhat shallow, fast click D2/Dungeon Siege school of beard, there is still something here for the maniacal fiddler to indulge in, and in this regard Sacred also shares kinship with the likes of Neverwinter Nights, or even (at a real stretch I'll admit) given the style of presentation, something like Morrowind.

   

Combo Masters can be found in the villages and for a little coin, these wizened, good old boys will help you put together a potentially huge variation of combos using the combat arts and magic spells you find in chests and on the corpses of your foes. Then there's the Blacksmiths, they'll aid you in creating mega weapons and armour; so long as there's a slot or two spare in which to place enchanted jewels and other magic items, they'll knock something up for you. There is a vast number of ways to tailor the equipment you carry and this proves to be a most satisfying and enjoyable diversion.

You have a choice of six heroes; Gladiator (tank), Seraphim (angel), Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Battle Mage and Vampiress. All are handy at both range and melee, though all have opportunities to specialise as you spend experience points acquired on levelling up. All but the Gladiator and Vampiress can cast magic (these two have special skills to aid in "buffing" attacks instead). There are none of the usual strict, D&D class or alignment rules here, you just hack and go. This system works very well and while it is extremely approachable, there is plenty of scope to be a little inventive. Execution of these moves and spells in the field is done with a click of the right mouse button or keyboard shortcut. The display is arranged so that all of this and other important inventory items and maps etc can be accessed directly, combat on the left, magic on the right, everything else in the middle.

Since Sacred is vying for a slice of some of Diablo's action, the inclusion of multiplayer mode is pretty essential. This is staged on either open or closed servers and the system is very similar to that of Battle.Net. Play options include a 1/4 player co-op campaign, pure, unadulterated hack and slash monster hunts with 1/16 players, or PvP battles, again 1/16 players. It all hangs together very well, though whether it proves as popular as D2 remains to be seen. It should be noted that a glance through the developer's forums seems to indicate very firmly, Ascaron's commitment to it's user base; I have read nothing but glowing reports from players who have received excellent support from them at very short notice. This is almost unheard of in the gaming world - a developer who values its customers so highly and delivers on promises certainly deserves success in my opinion.

Seems I've not left much room to mention visuals and sound, but hey, there's so much more meat on Sacred's bones than a mere cursory glance can attest to. Presentation is anything but perfunctory, pleasing on the eye, it's polished; yet at the same time there's nothing here to really dazzle. Background scenery is strictly 2D and represents the world of Ancaria more than adequately. However, zoom in close and things get blocky and grainy, as is the way of 2D. The characters themselves though, are represented in 3D and are quite beautifully detailed and animated (except for the wood elf who has a very curious gait, as though she's perhaps messed her britches). As you deck them out with new kit, their appearance will change accordingly, Ken and Barbie style. A further upside to this design is that it will run smoothly on a fairly wide range of rigs; anything from a Pentium III 800 with 256Mb system memory and a 16Mb GPU upwards.

   

Sound ranges from great to just good, with an abundance of spot effects where you would expect them and some excellent, dynamically themed battle music, much like the Baldur's Gate series. Voice acting is spot on and injected with enough character to aid in immersing you in Sacred's vivid, lively little world. If you listen very carefully, you will hear one village woman chastising her lazy husband, "when are you going to clean all your shit up!" says the old crone (or perhaps that was my Wife and the door was closed....).

Sacred comes highly recommended, it sits at the centre of the RPG market, right in that place that is so sorely neglected, between the heavy duty, conservatively story driven and the lite, action variety, so should appeal squarely to fans of both styles. Buy it.