I finally broke down and had a go, and I have to admit, my money wasn't wasted, but at the same time, my money could have been better spent.

Lets start with the story line. You play a young Norse warrior out to avenge the betrayal of your village at the hands of one of your own. Of course, his strings are being pulled by Loki, the God of lies, and your quest is to find the betrayer, and set things right again. At this point I would like to say that the references to Norse mythology are quite interesting, though I cannot speak for their accuracy. The game takes you through underground caverns, a large city as well as the very pits of Hell itself.

Now lets be clear from the beginning - this is a hack and slash, pure and simple. Pick up the sword and kill everything you see. Its very linear and has no role playing elements at all.

Having said that, it's a pretty damn good hack and slash. What makes it so good are the graphics. I have literally never seen a game with such high end, impressive visuals as this one. There is a scene wherein the building has polished marble floors. The reflection of the scenery above is flawless, and so well rendered I saved the game there just so I could go back later and look at it.

A word of warning about these graphics - if you have a lower end machine, and/or a lower end graphics card, expect to be frustrated by slow game play or poor graphic performance.

On the down side, the game is very short. This is almost a plus, considering the fact that the game play gets old very quickly. Save for the various weapons to be found (and even these are limited) the game play lacks any real variation. The only thing that was able to sustain the game was the graphic presentation, and if the game had been any longer, I doubt that the visual aspect would have carried it enough to save it. As it was, its length was long enough to minimally satisfy my gaming wants, but short enough that the flat game play didn't get too repetitive.

I enjoyed the cinematics in the game, and there is a bit of a plot twist near the end that was well executed. Aside from that though, the game lacked any real depth. In truth, this was another attempt at style over substance, and in the end, it really isn't enough.

Rune is entertaining for what it is worth, but your money might be better spent waiting until this one hits the discount bin.

Just as a side note, Rune has set the stage for Blade of Darkness to take up the slack. It will be interesting to see if Blade of Darkness has what it takes to fulfill the promise made by Rune.

   by Galen