Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone

I toldja guys I'd be writing about games right? Ha ha ha ha ha! If you aren't interested in games at all then you'd better skip this blog entry.

I picked up Demon Stone for the PS2 sometime last week at my regular gaming haunt in 1 Utama after meeting up with some friends there. I'd been keeping track of the game for a fair bit as the graphics looked sweet! And in that respect I was not disappointed. The graphics are absolutely amazing. In one level as my characters were duking it out with some Slaad (Slaad are some planar beings from another realm), there was a huge red dragon battling one of the villains in the game. The rumbling of the battle in the background plus the on-screen action with my other characters certainly made the the game a somewhat more cinematic experience. I must say that Stormfront Studios have a most excellent game engine which I hope to see used to better effect in other games.

The plot while not the most original certainly feels very well written. Of course one would expect it to be so since R.A. Salvatore, a best-selling Forgotten Realms author with Wizards of the Coast. I read somewhere that he only wrote 1 page worth of plot and dialogue which explains the shortness of the game. I think beat the game in something like 8 or 10 hours; it gets my vote for shortest video game of 2004.

As a game itself, there isn't much to shout about. All I did was mash the same combo over again & again to defeat the scores of enemies that came pouring at me. Although I must say the 3 person party element of the game was pretty unique. Me ... I just stuck to the human warrior and lopped of the heads of all who stood in my way while my companions supported me. I was pretty annoyed towards the end of the game when battling the red dragon boss in the game. On my first try I managed to whittle down its lifebar to 0 but then I found I couldn't kill it. Much to my dismay I got killed and later on had to replay the level multiple times to try to kill it. After much searching on the official forum I discovered that you had to use each character in turn after its lifebar was at 0 to take down the best. That really irritated me and I must say the developers should be maimed a little for programming that into the game.

Demon Stone does allow for some customization to your characters. At the end of every level you complete, you are given points to purchase different skills for each character plus GOLD to buy all kinds of nifty D&D items like +1 swords and the like. I couldn't be bothered with it although I can get pretty engrossed in character customization in most of the games I play. All I did was hit the auto buy option and got the game to just buy whatever it saw fit to add on to my characters which allowed me to plow through the game quickly.

In closing, Demon Stone was a pretty fun romp but I doubt I'll be going back to playing it a second time through. Play it for the eye candy because I really do think it's the best looking PS2 game out there now. To its credit I did end the game (if you looked into my cupboard now you will find tons of unfinished games) so I'd say the game did keep my occupied for a fair bit of time. Overall I'd give my escape from reality in playing this game a 6 out of 10.

Fun Factor: 6 out of 10
Addictiveness: 1 out of 10
Graphics: 10 out of 10
Overall Grade: 6 out of 10