Dawn of Magic is what some may describe as a Gentleman of the Old School - a game that isn't about to make any serious changes to the way you play games of its ilk, but one that's fully aware of its limitations and that consequently plays to its strengths. I suppose it's a nicer way of calling it retro, or a more generous term than simply labelling it as a rehash - not that this is a game that should be judged too harshly, as it's in a genre renowned for repetition and lack of originality. What's important is how Dawn of Magic uses the ideas it borrows from its peers and for a very short while at least, it does have a good stab at doing some thing slightly differently.

On the face of it, Dawn of Magic isn't a game that takes any great bounds; unless you've been living under a rock and somehow let the entire action RPG genre slip by, you'll instinctively know what to do and how to go about doing it. The simplistic two-mouse button control scheme is a carbon copy of every action RPG since Diablo, as is the method of progressing through non-stop rampant killing sprees to reach your ultimate goal; indeed, this is a game that's built on the traditions of genre.

Punctuating the gameplay is a nice - if never quite that original or gripping - story, one that tells the tale of a rather nasty immortal creature called Modo, an entity who reigned in a realm of the afterlife and whose crimes there led to his banishment to Earth. Now he is forced to live, age and eventually die as any mortal would, but with the memories of the times when he had absolute power still intact to torment him during his existence. Of course, it isn't long until Modo craves the chance to reclaim his lost powers and return to his world while destroying Earth so he isn't punished in the same way again. So, you step into the fray as the insignificant figure who will eventually climb the ranks, unlock potent spells and vanquish Modo once and for all, saving the world in the process, much to everyone's delight. Or maybe not. Perhaps why this story is so intriguing is because it isn't a story that confines you to the role of the hero - you can fight the forces of evil if you want, but you can also help Modo on his quest and doom the planet and all those on it to oblivion!

Along the way you can help people with their problems, catch thieves, kill wolves, rescue children, or just kill the lot of them by hacking them to pieces, leaving the numerous towns and settlements you visit soaked with the blood of the many innocent people who once lived there. You'll eventually begin to look like the evil demonic creature you've become, or the angelic hero if you decide that being the bad guy just doesn't feel that right. It's a nice twist to the tale - admittedly it's not one that is developed as much as it could have been, but it does offer some degree of freedom to how you play.

The gameplay itself remains unaffected either way; it's still heavy with action and you'll still find yourself slaughtering just about every living thing that lies between you and Modo, regardless of how you align yourself to his cause. There are four selectable classes to play as, all pre-made with a range of different stats, yet despite a lack of customisation, throughout the game you are allowed to pick and choose from a variety of spells and abilities that lead to something a little more personal and unique.

Magic spells are perhaps what makes Dawn of Magic stand out most from its counterparts. This is an action heavy game that still requires you to rely on your sword arm to slice through its inhabitants, but there are a great many number of spells you can learn along the way from the twelve schools of magic made available. These can be anything from offensive spells that allow the resurrection of undead minions who aid you in fights to the use of destructive fireballs, to more beneficial spells such as temporary weapon enchantments and healing spells. It's a pretty impressive line up of abilities, and they become necessary, because the general hitting of things over the head with blunt objects will only get you so far; Dawn of Magic likes to pile on so many enemies that before long you'll come to realise that the use of spells can drastically help you to rid the world of the countless minions who've since taken residence.

It's through these many enemies you meet that Dawn of Magic again manages to rise above the crowd. They are as diverse as the environments you face them in, and while they may all fall into familiar fantasy clichés, with goblins, wolves and dragons all up for the chop, they boast a visual diversity that makes killing them a worthwhile endeavour. You're not just killing coyotes - you're killing coyotes made of stone, with glowing eyes and an unnatural ability to drop boulders on your head. Given that it's these creatures you spend the majority of the game facing, it's nice to see a developer spend so much time pouring such an awesome amount of detail into them.

The environments are equally as impressive in both scale and visual appearance; they aren't as open as other games, with various areas zoned off, but each location is large in their scale and they're often full of non-playable characters, as well as the creatures you have to kill. There's something of a nice interaction between some of these inhabitants, occasionally fighting it out amongst themselves as you go about your business. Graphically there might be something lacking in the design department when it comes to your environment, but the places you explore can boast some nice visuals. Taking the early cave crawl you get near the beginning of the game as an example, it's not just some dark dingy linear cavern, but rather a cave full of luminescent blue rocks that emanate light, with a strong red glow throughout. The lighting effects can look quite appealing, as do those caused by the spells you unleash, but there are occasions where these effects can become a little too much and you find yourself confused as to what's going on, which is especially troublesome when the action gets too chaotic.

This isn't the only problem either - Dawn of Magic does have its share of flaws, the most notable of which is in the interface, which is a clunky mess. Rather than allowing you to view all of your acquired items in one neat collection, you're forced to view them all through a sort of conveyor belt, where separating the important items from the useless ones becomes something of a chore. There are also some niggling problems with the general questing, and if you aren't being half bored to death by the dull, and laughably voice-acted side quests, you're suffering from the way in which you are forced to explore the environments to complete them.

This hurts progression in two ways. The first is how you actually get about the place. As this isn't one continuous seamless mass, every area must be accessed through portals, which isn't much of a problem until you find that some portals that you have to enter leave you at the other end, surrounded by beasts that immediately attack before you have a chance to figure out what's going on. Furthermore, not all quests are specific on where you actually have to go; a quest might direct you to head northwest to find a particularly nasty creature's lair, when what it really means is that you have to head northwest to find the portal that leads you to the zone where the creature's lair is located. Cue many an hour spent endlessly searching the environment, killing everything you come across as you search for this lair before the realisation dawns upon you that you need to be somewhere else. This isn't enough to kill the game, but it is enough to lower the enjoyment below those it so strives to stand side by side with.

Dawn of Magic is a solidly made, occasionally quite addictive and fairly beautiful game to look at (so long as you don't zoom in too close on the action) and its use of magic and a nice crafting system do go some way to compensate for some of its problems. However, it's still a hack and slash game that does little to the alter template of the genre; it's good fun, but it's not memorable. Still, until Blizzard pull their finger out and actually go ahead with Diablo 3, Dawn of Magic is a good addition to the genre that's a fun, no-brainer thrill ride while it lasts.

Reviewed by Kieron Giacopazzi for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).