Barrow Hill is set in the real-world location of Cornwall, a welcome departure from the usual fantasy settings of many modern games. Allegedly this helps the game create its nightmarish atmosphere prompting the BBC to boldly state that playing Barrow Hill is the next best thing to sleeping in a haunted house. If this report is true, Shadow Tor Studios have developed an unbelievably enjoyable and deeply scary game. Unfortunately, it is far from the truth and the game misses the mark of excellence by a good few feet.

First to take the plunge is the story. You are an unknown person driving your car along a road during the Autumn solstice when the hours of light and darkness are the same. As luck would have it your automobile judders to a halt just outside the archaeological site of Barrow Hill and will not start - typical! As you wander around the Cornish landscape trying to find out what on earth is going on and how you can bring your car back to life, you become involved in some devilish investigation into the ancient burial ground uncovered on the Hill. This story is well thought through with various riddles to unravel, puzzles to solve and clues to follow. However, this is all very usual for this genre of game. I would have liked something a little bit different, some flair to really set this game apart from the competition. It also takes an awfully long time to actually figure out what to do and where to go. From when your car stops, you are literally left in the dark to make your own way - whichever way that may be. This initial lack of direction does not do the game any favours as it produces some meaningless and frustrating backwards and forwards sections where you repeatedly perform the same action over and over again trying to make something happen or to reveal anything you've missed.

The basic gameplay is the simple 'here is what you see, click in the direction you want to move' style. This boils down to a series of static, non-moving images (scenes) navigated through by mouse-clicks - often making the game feel like a slideshow. In an effort to bring something new and different to the point and click adventure genre, Shadow Tor Studios have - bizarrely - opted for a slight open-world approach. Alright, the word "open" is a bit out of context as you are still restricted to narrow paths, taking you in the exact directions the designer wants you to go. The game does set itself in a world-like environment where you are free to travel back and fourth as you please creating a near-enough open-world effect, although the world is dauntingly small.

It's a shame, but I do not think this idea works at all. The major problem is that there is no real context or gravity to the puzzles that turn up. For example, say you were playing a traditional linear point and click game, you encounter a puzzle and you can be sure that the solution to that puzzle must be hidden within the last few scenes you passed through; limiting the time spent flicking between scenes looking for a clue. In Barrow Hill, you just don't have that context; the solution to puzzles can be anywhere within the world, leading to lots of slow and arduous back tracking.

Further, it is very easy to miss vitally important scenes altogether. Most scenes have certain clickable areas that zoom in on special clue-holding objects to allow you to interact with them. However, these areas are often tiny with the result that it's far too easy to walk straight past them - something I did on my first play. Not having the complete picture can often make puzzle-solving impossible and this leads to a very frustrating game indeed. This problem could have been easily rectified - all the developers needed to do was add a feature that shows all the clickable areas on screen while a button is pressed. This would mean skilled players that devote hours to this type of game would still find the gameplay realistic, having to rely on their skill to find hidden areas, while novices are given a helping hand to ensure they never miss anything crucial.

That being said, the puzzles themselves are the highlight of the action (or lack of it). Every brain-teaser has a purpose and it never seems like a tricky situation has been plonked in front of you simply to slow your progress - a trap that many similar games fall into. A good example comes early on in the game when you are tasked with fixing a broken lantern before the character you control gets the courage to venture into the darker areas. There are a lot of dark areas too - the game takes place at night so everywhere is pretty dark. It's only in the really, really dark areas that you actually get to use the torch-like lantern - a shame as it is sorely needed in some more well-lit areas with shadowy corners.

Of course, the dark is a staple environ for spooky goings on (thankfully some games are starting to scare you when you can actually see what's happening), yet Barrow Hill really doesn't terrify me half as much as it should. One of the reasons for this lack of scariness is that for a large part of the game there's nothing to be scared of at all. You never see any leaves rustling mysteriously, CCTV footage of horrible creatures partially out of shot or sudden and inexplicable sightings. There are plentiful opportunities out there but annoyingly none are taken. For example, the lantern's light casts a circular beam with a dark centre; surely some visual trickery could have made use of this blind spot. When you first switch the lantern on, a small circular mirror appears which could have been used to great effect, such as featuring a toppled chair being dragged round a blind corner only to reveal an empty hallway when you eventually round the bend. The game even lets you view remote cameras filming the unearthed burial ground - a few unidentified figures walking to and fro, occasionally disappearing from view, would have certainly sent shivers down my spine.

In fact, the scariest bit is the opening cutscene. It's real-life home-video style which is strange to see in a computer game and by home-video I do actually mean footage that has been taken from people's camcorders and edited together quite professionally. What they've done is filmed it entirely in black and white so it feels exactly as if you are about to jump into a classic horror movie - an excellent way to set a chilling tone before play begins. In the second cutscene shown when you knock on the door of an office, you see a real-life guy trying to look scared for the camera - it resembles a homemade amateur video posted on YouTube. It really is that bad and makes the game look unprofessional.

The graphics pick the game back off the floor again, but let go relatively quickly. On the whole the visuals are high quality, being fairly well-detailed and suitably coloured for the dark environment. Trees cast realistic, if completely static, shadows on the ground and strange carvings are visible in some of the stone. In some areas the detail disappears - cars are one such disappointingly bland contender. Also the graphics are a little bit clean and unused, nothing looks cracked or damaged without being in multiple pieces. For example, at one point there are a kid's toys on the ground which, as well as looking out of place, do not look as if they have ever been used by a child.

The sound is good, almost spectacular in fact. On the menu screen your ears are filled with some wonderfully creepy music. Leaves rustle, bells chime to create a disturbing "beat" and the use of windy, crackly effects give it a disturbing ambience. During actual gameplay itself there is fairly little audio - frogs croaking, leaves rustling as you walk and owls hooting are the kind of thing to expect. There is no music for the most part, a very welcome decision as a constantly looping rhythm would get very annoying.

When you find a map of the game "world", the solution to another strategic puzzle, you discover that it is disappointingly restricted. Despite first impressions, you do get a reasonable playtime - not as long as some other point and click adventures but long enough to satisfy your lust for brain-teasers. Once you are at the end, there is no reason to trek back to the Barrow - you've solved the riddle and unravelled the mystery. There is no multiplayer, no achievements to win and no downloadable content ever likely to appear.

Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle seems to be generally lacking in polish, leaving a rather unprofessional and rushed out for Halloween feel. Most of this lack of polish shines through in the design of the game, leading to a great many missed opportunities. Saying that, there are a few design faults; the open-world concept just does not work, the easily miss-able sections and a lack of direction initially are the most predominant ones. It is still a decent game being technically well-accomplished in terms of sound and graphics, both developed to a reasonably high-standard. However, if you're not a fan of the genre, stay away from this fundamentally flawed game.

Reviewed by Tom Clark for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).