Elveon

By Xbox World 360 for Xbox World Magazine Subscribe now!

In an ancient, mystical era, great powerful beings called Dragons fought against each other in an eternal clash. To stop this terrible strife, the Gods - Nimas - formed a... a... ah, screw it. You get the picture: Elveon is going to be an RPG EPIC with a capital EP, and one of the first things it does is slap you in the face with its uber-earnest fantasy credentials that paint a portrait of a staggeringly in-depth backstory of myth, legend... and a whole lot of elves.

Elveon is a massive RPG that relies heavily on action elements, but in using the Unreal Engine 3 (the template for Gears of War, Mass Effect and more) it also pushes a superb-looking gameworld where The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is firmly within its sights. During our hands-on session we have to admit that the areas of this world we got to explore were unquestionably beautiful, with an environment and weather system that should rival Alan Wake's. 10tacle have been very hard at work to make this adventure truly atmospheric and you'll see shards of sunlight piercing through trees and leaves and branches swaying in the wind. Also, the buildings are very impressive. Well, at least on the outside.

We say this because, once headed inside, our character proceeded to go through a series of serious battles one after another down an undeniably dull series of corridors and halls. Annoyingly, the building we investigated was pretty much the fantasy equivalent of a factory - dull, repetitive and lacking any of the sparkle that we've been promised. A crisp, nicely-detailed corridor is, after all, still just a corridor. The flipside? Combat is a slow and smooth experience - in the early build we saw, blocking and timing your attacks was vital and your enemies are extremely smart and dangerous so you won't be running through this game by any means. Indeed, some of the battles will take minutes, so patience and skill will be the order of the day.

ELF-LIFE

One of the weapons we were especially impressed with was the bow and arrow. They've built in gravity to the game so you'll have to aim accordingly, but when you fire home it's extra satisfying - a sort of short-range sniper, if you will. And as for the story, well, let's just say it'll be exhaustive. Information supplied ran into several thousands words detailing the entire creation of a world spanning a millennia. And, Tolkein-style, they've only gone and created an ENTIRE ELVISH LANGUAGE for their characters to speak. Brilliant... if rendered slightly pointless by the subtitles. Still, we reckon you can turn them off and learn it yourself if you're a) utterly devoted or b) the world's biggest Elf fan.