Once, when I was young, I really wanted one of those cool quad bike thingies that you can ride on. I really, really wanted one. Christmas day rolled around and, under the tree, all wrapped up in shiny paper, was the largest box I'd ever seen. Eagerly tearing off the wrapping I knew - I just knew - that this was the quad bike! As it turns out, it was a toy garage. That was my first taste of disappointment, and there have been many more flavours of it in the years since. Most recently, however, is Hard to be a God, although this game comes nowhere close to the quad bike incident.

I recently extolled the virtues of Hard to be a God's narrative and cleverly developed storytelling abilities - and I stand by my assessment, as the game is engaging and well written, featuring a twisty-turny plot and jam-packed with quests. The plot begins simply enough. Earth and its sister planet Arkanar were once very similar, but there was a massive war between the two and they grew apart. Earth evolved to develop today's technologies and weapons, while Arkanar remained in a constant medieval time zone. Earth has gotten wind of Arkanar's stagnation and sent in a special agent to figure out what's going on. Playing as this special agent, you must try and work out exactly what has happened to our cousins from another planet, which involves gaining status and respect, making money and, of course, just the odd slice of random violence!

Shockingly there are no introductory videos or even a text preamble - the game just throws you in with no idea of who you are or what you're doing. The only reason I know as much about the plot as I do is that I have played the preview code and read the press sheet. I would really have liked - nay, expected - an introduction of some kind, but nevertheless, once I'd worked out where the story was headed, I discovered that the narrative is far superior to any Hollywood blockbuster, and on a par with many decent novels. Treachery abounds, plot twists arise at frequent intervals and before you know it you're so absorbed in the story that you won't want to stop playing until you've found out exactly what is going on The delivery is nigh on perfect; Hard to be a God is one of the best told stories in gaming.

As an undercover special agent, I assumed the role of some kind of newly recruited mercenary about to take my final exam and become a man. Or at least a better paid mercenary. The first part of my graduation required me to kill some bandits that had been terrorising the local area; so off I went, trusty sword in hand, and tracked them down to an encampment not far from the outpost. My first plan of attack - to enter the camp in disguise - failed, so I was left with little option but to launch an all-out attack. Me, a lowly level one mercenary, storming a camp of maybe three or four heavily armed bandits? Madness, sheer madness! Within seconds they had kicked the proverbial out of me and left me for dead in the gutter; clearly a different approach was required.

Gathering the group of bandits together with great courage, I turned tail and fled heroically towards the road a ways back, confident in the knowledge that I had seen a patrol of friendly army types pass by not long ago. Sure enough, the two opposing fronts met in an uncouth tidal wave of blood and metal, wiping out all combatants and leaving me with the lion's share of the loot and the glory! Interestingly, by equipping the thieves' armour I had liberated from the corpses, I assumed the identity of a thief, allowing me to travel back to the outpost unhindered by the numerous ruffians littering the highways. Collecting the numerous different armour types allows you to assume a multitude of different guises, blending into the roles of Imperial Guardsman, Bandit, Don and Monarchy in a way that would impress even the recently famous Altair. Indeed, so many of the quests require donning these masquerades that the standard accumulation of clothing actually has a purpose, other than as something to sell off.

Even this small example serves to highlight the many different ways that challenges can be overcome in Hard to be a God. Combat and diplomacy are meted out in equal measure - can't kill an enemy? Bribe him for the information you need. Gang proving too tough to handle? Take out the leader and the rest will be more willing to cooperate. Every mission usually has at least two possible methods of completion and it's nice to see that care has been taken to provide options for those who prefer an alternative to hacking their way through every living thing out there. Although the game comes across as a standard hack 'n' slash affair (albeit quite a challenging one), there's much more depth on offer than is first apparent.

However, while the story and setting are superior, the combat is somewhat simplistic - it's a case of click to swing, with limited combination attacks and an annoying habit of leaving your character out of stamina and standing stock-still whilst enemies rain blows on him. The character (I'm going to call him 'Dave' so I don't have to keep writing 'the character') - Dave often winds up facing the wrong way after performing an attack, leaving his back open to a deadly blow, while enemies can still move and perform attacks far more quickly than he can. Some of the improved attacks are quite cool - every few levels, Dave gets the option of choosing a new special attack for each weapon class (light, medium or heavy), which deals massive damage to foes. Most are powerful overhead swings, but some send Dave into a whirling dervish, obliterating all-comers with a recklessness verging on insanity. It's not a graceful system (although it beats the dice-roll-based combat of some other RPGs) and many areas could be improved, but it suffices, and combat is often over so quickly that you may never notice its limitations at all.

Some of the armour and weaponry look impressive - especially later when you gain access to Earth's futuristic weaponry; the blending of traditional fantasy settings and sci-fi items is unusual and means that you can go up against sword-wielding cavalier types with a hi-tech laser gun! Using this kind of power has its drawbacks, however, because as the title says, it's Hard to be a God. Every yokel that sees you wearing Buzz Aldrin's spacesuit is going to be asking some mighty difficult questions about your divinity, and pretty soon the populace will be idolising you, which serves to make your top secret mission that much harder to complete without totally blowing your cover. It's strange to have the mixture of time periods, yet this provides Hard to be a God with a truly original idea!

There are some issues with the graphics and sound, but overall they do their job well enough and sometimes excel. Building interiors are sparsely decorated; the occasional chest or table is all that identifies one house from its neighbour and there's little in the way of ornaments or statues - most of the buildings seem like afterthoughts that were thrown in last minute. The exteriors make up for this with gusto however, with their shimmering lakes, dank swamps and mountain vistas - and considering that Dave spends most of his time outside, this is a good thing. The details found in these outdoor areas are impressive; each new area has ancient ruins, farms, secret tombs, castles, bandit camps and a whole heap of other little touches that create the impression of a world much larger than the size of the game.

The sound however, although considerably improved since the preview (there are fight sound effects now!), is still lacking in places. Oftentimes the characters simply grunt when hit or make strangled cries when killed, while the ambient sounds are, at best, average - the wind swishing through trees, the cries of traders and pedestrians in towns - yet it seems that little effort was put into creating a believable or engaging soundscape throughout the game. It's as though the developers thought "Oh no, we forgot the sound effects!" and threw some samples together at the last minute.

Obviously an RPG wouldn't be much cop without quests and Hard to be a God doesn't disappoint in this department. Running parallel to the main storyline are literally hundreds of side quests, ranging from the obligatory 'kill me some bandits' to finding lost children. But unlike many of the hundreds of RPGs I've played, not one of these quests feels trivial or boring - each gives information about the people and places found in the game, making them worthwhile and genuinely entertaining. Whether I was attempting to recover lost charity money or end a village feud, it always seemed as though I had accomplished something and whilst it can get overwhelming when it seems like everyone in the game world needs your help (which they do!), especially with the often sloppy journal entries, the majority of experience points are doled out for quests rather than grinding monsters, so they become a necessary part of levelling Dave up.

However, despite these engaging side quests, it's the main storyline that truly excels. After graduation I was sent off to Arkanar, a distant city, to assassinate a couple of fellows who had done something they shouldn't have done. Along the way I was set upon by Monks believing they should purify the land, had to break out of prison and ended a rivalry between two nasty sorts just so I could get the city gates open. Oh, and I also had some rather enlightening conversations with myself. This is how much of the plot is filtered through; from time to time I was transported 'somewhere' and told snippets of events obviously far larger than anything happening in Coronation Street this week. Hints of a new messiah, betrayal in the monarchy, some trouble with the timelines and some other pretty dark stuff all presented themselves and every time I was confronted with my alter ego, a new twist on the plot set me thinking about my own motives for fulfilling this mission. Just what was going on and why was I here?

Tantalising morsels of plot fell onto the plate of understanding, only to be snatched away by the hungry dog of deceit however - and boy does that dog have an appetite! New twists and turns in the labyrinthine narrative were replaced by half-truths and rumour as quickly as I had tracked down their origins. By the time I had finished only half of my original quest line, I had acquired a journal literally bursting at the bindings with allegations, secret meetings and clandestine plans. Not that it ever became confusing or obscure; I could still follow what was going on easily - and that's no mean feat, incorporating the type of deep, absorbing narrative usually found in best-selling novels, without completely baffling the player. I kept on going just to try and find out what was actually going on and it is a rare game indeed that draws attention from its plot alone, especially when that game is billed as a hack 'n' slash. Hard to be a God offers inspired intrigue of the highest calibre.

As far as RPGs go, everything necessary for some great gameplay is implemented excellently, from the intuitive inventory management screen, which automatically groups items into categories (quest, armour, weaponry, health and so on) and features a tool to compare items to ensure that the best gear is always equipped, to the ability to change your character's class by equipping different clothes. As I touched upon earlier, this is a novel idea and works very well; travel down the highway as a soldier and you'll find yourself beset by bandits on all sides, but obtain a thief's outfit and ride that same highway and you'll be free to explore without constant bandit badgering. Some character customisation prior to playing would have been nice, but this idea makes up for that well and customisation is not something that I personally missed in Hard to be a God. This is because you constantly feel as though something is being accomplished; each new armour or weapon upgrade - be it a shiny new cuirass or a huge two-handed broadsword - serves to give the impression that the character has grown and evolved. Soon Dave's appearance had drastically altered - no longer was he the fresh-faced boy I was first introduced to; now he had become a grizzled stalwart of combat, with a taste for battle and the skills to back it up. They grow up so fast *sniff*!

I stand by my prior assessment of Hard to be a God; it's easy to pick up and play, it has the most absorbing and genuinely interesting narrative I've seen in an RPG for ages, there are so many quests to discover that it will give even the most hardcore completist many hours of play and it's rare to see an RPG that doesn't rely solely on grinding for experience. It doesn't have the greatest graphics in the world, the sound really needed more attention before release and the combat system can feel a little unwieldy at times, yet, looking back, perhaps it's not such a disappointment after all! If you're a fan of the genre then give it a go and discover just how hard it actually is to be a God.

Reviewed by John Barnes for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).