E3 hands-on: MediEvil Resurrection

For various reasons - notably the less than successful Primal and Ghosthunter - the MediEvil series of games never made the leap to PlayStation2, despite selling over a million on PSone. Good news then that the tongue-in-cheek adventures of the brave Sir Daniel Fortesque will continue on PSP. Not that the skeletal knight has a tongue or cheek of course. For some reason he doesn’t even have a jawbone. Thankfully he doesn’t need either as he sets forth on the quest to rescue the land of Gallowmere from the evil Zarok.

All the classic MediEvil touches seem to be in place. Controls are nicely balanced with PSP’s widescreen providing a good view of the melee action. Gameplay remains pretty simple too. If it moves and looks nasty, you should wack it with whatever weapon you have available. In the E3 demo, these ranged from swords and axes to bows and arrows. And of course, if you don’t have any offensive items, Fortesque will pull off his bony arm and attack with that. There’s also a reasonably tight auto lock-on for targetting enemies, so you can move around while bashing at them. A friendly genie provides basic navigation through the levels, which are organised on a locked door-type approach - so you’ll have to find a key or special item to make progress. And throughout, the cutscenes populated by an array of amusingly-voiced characters keep you interested in finding out what’s next.

Also promised are plenty of Wi-Fi options. It’s thought these will be include simple multiplayer mini-games in which you can earn cash to buy items in the main single player game.