Dracula: The Resurrection

Be afraid, be very afraid. The dead are stalking the Earth, bringing a dark blanket of despair over all of humanity. Or at least the part of humanity that plays PC games. Those of you who thought the Myst adventure game was dead and buried with a 3D-accelerated stake sunk deep into its monorail heart will be distressed to know that Dracula: Resurrection is here to resurrect it.

The story follows on from where Bram Stoker's book left off, seven years after the Count has been hunted and destroyed by Van Helsing and co. Of course, the world's premiere vampire is still undead and sucking, prompting Harker's wife, Mina, to go to him, obviously deciding that necrophilia is the thing for her. Your job is to guide Harker to Dracula's castle, save his sex-crazed spouse, kill the Count, again, and solve some incredibly boring puzzles on the way.

The game borrows as much as it can from the Francis Ford Coppola film, right down to Jonathan Harker being a Keanu Reeves-style tosser with a weird mix of English and American accents. Unfortunately, it has none of the style, panache or imagery. The gameplay is as limited and simple as any Myst game, allowing you less freedom than you'd get in a rolling dice adventure book. You can only move where the arrow lets you, and you can only interact with the minute number of objects that the game points you to. If you're part of the generation who cried with joy into their cups of tea when Riven dulled our screens, you may very well be getting your PG Tips ready. The rest of you will just shake your heads in disbelief and mutter something like, "those crazy French people", probably using more offensive and xenophobic words.