Demon Stone is one of those console ported games for the PC that is obviously a console port. By using the term console port, I mean that it is an exact copy of a game originally made for a console gaming station such as the PlayStation 2 or Xbox. A good example of this is the fact that you can't use a mouse in the main menus and must use the keyboard to move the selections up and down just like you would use a controller pad on a console system.

This game is set in the D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) world and is based on an original story by R.A. Salvatore. Adding more celebrity status to the game are the voices of Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: TNG) and Michael Clarke Duncan (Green Mile). D&D fans should all know who Salvatore is, being that he has created some of the most beloved fantasy characters in his many novels, especially the Dark Elf series with Drizzt Do'Urden. In the opening video, it tells of how two demons were wreaking havoc on the land and a wizard trapped them inside a demon stone, which is basically just a big magic rock. As you might expect, the demons have broken out of their prison and are once again causing problems. Guess who gets to save the day? Why, you do, of course.

The gameplay for Demon Stone is very much like the Lord of the Rings action games for the console and PC. You can use the mouse or a joystick, but I highly recommend using a joystick pad controller of some kind, because the mouse is just too difficult. There's way too much clicking involved. You control your character in a battlefield type environment. The camera angles move slightly depending on your position, then the scenes change as you move along. It would have been really nice if you could spin the camera views around because things can get chaotic and you can be surrounded very quickly. This game is pure hack and slash for beginning to end, which is why you need a controller of some kind to play. In short, Demon Stone is a real button masher.

While you play the game, you have a small party of people to control. You can only control one at a time while the other two help. Often times in games like this you end up doing all the work and your sidekicks barely do anything, but in this one they actually help. You can control a human who looks like Val Kilmer's character in Willow, an elf sorcerer who looks like a dark haired Legolas, or a female dark elf rogue with purple skin and white hair. Each character has their own special moves and combos. The best ones are difficult to master, but they deal massive amounts of damage.

The graphics for this game are pretty good in most parts and lame in others, at least by PC standards. The cutscenes are horribly pixilated and look almost like something out of a PlayStation 1 game. During the actual gameplay, it looks pretty good and the animation is really nice. When you control the female dark elf, she does all kinds of jumping maneuvers that are fun to watch. During the opening menu, you can change the screen resolution and a couple of other minor settings, but that's it. I've got a 3ghz Pentium 4 system with a gig of ram and a Radeon X300 video card. The game resolution is set to 1024x768 and everything runs nice and smooth without any noticeable slow-downs or frame loss.

I was impressed with the sound and the effects are nice. If you have a speaker system with a subwoofer, this game will definitely put your bass to the test with all the crashing stones and exploding fireballs. The excellent voice work of Stewart and Duncan, along with the rest of the cast, also helps give it a movie-like quality.

I really enjoyed playing Demon Stone even though it is just a straight action game. There are no real role playing elements to it, other than the fact that your characters do level up and you can pick which skills for them to learn. Even so, I found it to be fun and challenging. There are ten total levels and each one can take you as much as an hour to complete, so this isn't a very long game. Even so, I had fun with it. Check it out if you like this type of game.


Recommended: Yes