Etrom: The Astral Essence

This Game Is serious. Not outstandingly good, but deadly serious. A futuristic fantasy sci-fi sword-world with a paper-RPG and comic attached, in a world where there's a perpetual curfew. Citizens congregate outside (in contravention of the curfew I might add) to stare at propaganda boards that read 'War Brings Peace' and This Kind Of Ham-fisted Propaganda Is A Threadbare Sci-fi Cliche'.

Your first mission is to stealth your way from your home to the sewers. However, with the game's control method, stealth is such slow, difficult and unfair progress that it's far more interesting (and worthwhile) to just kill the guards as they appear, dying and trying again until you make it.

In addition, the mouse-orientated controls are possibly intended to be innovative, but they're more than a little bothersome. You do get used to it, but you never feel as in control as you should be. Your potential reaction time to new threats is slower, and your many deaths are that much quicker. Combat is easily manageable with a couple of enemies, but with the frequent mobs, the multiple clicks required to attack each foe is just frantic and a bit cumbersome. Without the drawbacks, this game would have been hackneyed fun just for the bizarre dialogue. You can't deny the charm of lines like: My old life is a ripped curtain, a dance macabre that we must watch, discover, listen to and destroy". In that order, right? It's still ploddingly adequate in an unsurprising way, but the faults are just too man