Have you ever read a story written by a six-year-old? They're extremely creative, coming up with wacky ideas that adults would never dream of. None of it really makes much sense of course, as kids tend to take creativity so far that it becomes confusing. It might make sense to them, but to any outside observer it's a mishmash of random ideas with few links and no logic. I'm sure you know where I'm going with this, but to spell it out, I'm making an analogy to Aura 2: Sacred Rings, a beautiful and creative game that probably seemed great to the producers, but to everybody else it teems with confusing elements and has no noticeable logic.

From the very beginning, you can tell there's going to be some plot and writing issues with Aura 2. The opening cinematic is a mash of names and places, all of which sound very exotic and very confusing. At the end of the three minute intro, all I had managed to pick up was that some bad guy is after a tetrahedron and rings, and some student called Umang who I assume I'll be playing as has been tasked to hide them. There is a lot more to it than that, but there's so much information and lore packed in that it all blurs together. Playing through the game doesn't clear up a terribly huge amount of the confusion either.

Likewise, the first in-game cinematic is enough to scare off anybody who's played a game with a plot before. Travelling through space and time in a teleporter, the hero Umang is dumped outside a house in an unknown land. The house-dweller invites you in and offers food and lodgings on the condition that you solve for him a perplexing puzzle. Could it be a powerful and complex computer that needs reprogramming? A metaphysical conundrum that requires your philosophical mind to solve? No - he needs you to "open the metal door" for him. Why? Because he "forgot how". Sure, your character asks why the door needs to be opened - but you're "here to work, not here to ask questions". Uh huh. This little exchange at the very beginning of the game typifies what you need to expect, so don't say you weren't warned. By the way, he doesn't tell you which metal door, and I never found out which one it was, as there are hundreds of them.

The player's view is in first person perspective, looking through Umang's eyes. While most players are probably used to a WASD system of control, Sacred Rings uses a 'transition' technique. As you pan around the screen, here and there the cursor changes to an arrow, letting you know you can click to move forward, and upon doing so the view makes a jumpy transition to the next location, which could very well be only a metre or so away. Imagine it like a chessboard, except there is no marked grid and the squares are different sizes. Also they're not really squares, more like summarily decided 'hotspots' that Umang stands in. The transition movement system makes traversing relatively short distances a tedious and time-consuming task. It also makes navigating around an already confusing world a lot harder, as it is easy to lose perspective when you never know how far forward a single click will throw you. Expect to spend a lot of time panning around the screen just trying to get your bearings from your last wacky transitional jump.

Graphically however, Sacred Rings generally does an excellent job. Borrowing heavily from games like Myst, the world of Sacred Rings is very much a steampunk-inspired place, with a mix of magic and Victorian-era backdrops and characters. Backgrounds are pre-rendered, with limited animation for objects like doors and machines, and they're generally quite pretty. If you're not a fan of steampunk however, stay well away from this game. For those who appreciate that style of visuals, this is a very nicely rendered game from a visual perspective. Unfortunately, the confusing nature of steampunk architecture can make it difficult to find your way around, as many doors and halls look either very similar, or too alien to remember, and thus are difficult to navigate by memory.

Considering that the main character has a name like Umang, it would be fair to expect the developers to work hard on making him likeable in other areas. Sadly this is not the case, as listening to Umang talk during cut scenes is like being a drama teacher rehearsing a play with high school students, and fairly untalented ones at that. Umang is great however compared to most of the other voice actors, especially the shining talent of Nikifor, the first character you meet. He sets the tone for the rest of the game's decidedly sub-par voice acting, and I'm still trying to decide if it's so bad it's funny, or just so bad. Thankfully the game's music is pleasant enough, which gives your ears a rest between cut scenes.

As a puzzle game, Sacred Rings is a bit hit-and-miss. There are plenty of puzzles, and as a general rule the difficulty is quite high. Remember the analogy to the six-year-old's story, where it makes sense to the writer but not to those reading it? The same thing applies here, as while most of the puzzles usually have a logical answer, there's no rational reason behind how they are placed or constructed. Instead of feeling like puzzles that an outsider would encounter in a strange world, it just feels like a whole lot of random problems thrown in at random. Not only does this make solving them more difficult without adding satisfaction, it defeats the purpose of using puzzles to immerse the player in the game world.

Aura 2: Sacred Rings is far from being a terrible game, but it's far from being a good one too. There's clearly talent behind the game, producing quality visuals and a technically impressive and bug-free experience. The plot and characters are dull and lifeless however, and there's nothing here to draw you into the world and make you want to stay. Add to this a high difficulty level from the very beginning, giving no time to adjust or acclimatise to the game, and there's little to hook players in for more than a few minutes before interest wanes. Were it actually written by a six-year-old I'd find it quite impressive, but for a major production by an experienced team of adults, there's much to be disappointed about.

Reviewed by Steve Rosenthal for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).