The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey

Before Peter Jackson got his hands on The Lord of the Rings books, romping around in a fantasy land populated by wizards, demon lords and goblins and the like was considered, well, a bit nerdy. Sure, the older ones amongst us loved the Fighting Fantasy books when we were younger and at one time or another we've all been tempted to glance inside The Games Workshop. However, most of us were always dissuaded from progressing further. It could have been the apparent complexity? Perhaps it was the odd dice or the funny names? More likely though is the thought that somehow it was all just a bit too sad. Fortunately Mr Jackson has managed to remove the anorak from the fantasy equation, focusing instead on glitzy visual effects and a more human storyline that everyone could identify with.

It's an object lesson in how to make fantasy appealing to the masses and it's a lesson that Shadowkey has evidently played truant from. Whilst there's little doubt this will appeal to role-playing game fans and PC owners who’ve enjoyed its big brother, a best-selling game called Morrowind. As a standalone N-Gage title it flops like a butter sword. Sitting here writing this, it’s hard to think of any positives about Shadowkey. Okay the screenshots look good from where you're sitting, but trust us, when you actually start to navigate through the 3D environments it's rather less impressive. While the detail of the characters and the landscapes is admirably ambitious, it seems that it's asking too much for the N-Gage to generate them all on-screen at once. The resulting look is akin to a low-budget zombie flick, where everything’s shrouded in mist in the daytime, or pitch black at night and you literally can’t see anything more than five paces in front of you. When things do emerge from the gloom, there’s so often a slow down in the action that you’ll have wished that they'd stayed hidden.

Whilst these visual problems aren't completely debilitating on their own, they could have done without being coupled to clumsy and awkward controls. Considering that all of the quests you’re given depend upon you stabbing, hitting or zapping something the resulting hit and miss nature of combat is simply unforgiveable.

Shadowkey could have been great. With the first person perspective offering a natural, immediate manner of connecting with the in-game objects and it's explorative, open 'do what you want' structure it could have been a truly accessible and engaging fantasy game.

Sadly, the resulting title is less fantasy exploration into a brave new world and more grim reality of family camping trip in the breacon beacons. A combination of poor visibility, dodgy navigation and long periods without anything interesting to do will leave you wishing that you'd just stayed at home.

The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey

An over-ambitious and poorly-executed game that simply doesn’t work on any level
Score