Review Detail

Disclaimer: I have not read the books and have no desire to, having previously gorged myself sick on pulp fantasy as a child. I'm already full and burping rainbows tinged with blood.

I love the way the box art evokes '70s pulp fantasy—the lurid blacklight colors, the hero surging ferociously forward as his foes fall fatally felled. Even the title font is reminiscent of an acid rock album cover.

The game pretty much hits all those marks—psychedelic and muscular, you cleave through masses of enemies, giving each of them a gullet-loosening taste of steel or a marrow-roasting blast of black magic. And the whole time the axes wail with soul-blistering guitar solos that propel you forward into the arms of either an appropriately outsized sex object or Death Itself...

Also, few things are as satsifying as dual-wielding a hapless goblin to death who was probably doing nothing more than innocently poking his head out his front door to see what all the ruckus was about.

That said, with no visceral connection to the source material I find that I vastly prefer Wrath of Ashardalon.