The Cursed Crusade

We suppose the one good thing about Cursed Crusade is that it’s kinda funny. Nip on over to YouTube now and watch some of the cutscenes, of which there are hundreds. The acting and dialogue is amazing. Imagine if Tommy Wiseau (of ‘The Room’ fame) thought to himself ‘Ah em going to maaak the best game EVUUUURRRR’ and was given a budget of about 6p, and you’ve got Cursed Crusade. It’s a third person hack and slash, though it feels more like a (wait for it) slap and dash. Pretty good eh? EH???

Oh fuck you.

Cursed Crusade feels like a PS2 game. It looks like one too. You take control of a noble, booming voiced English knight (who sounds American) called Denz de Bayle, who’s joined by a naughty Spaniard called Esteban Noviembre, as they go and have lots of interminable sluggish fights with people and beasties. They can also turn into demons because everyone can turn into frigging demons nowadays.

It seems like a medieval buddy cop movie. From the moment they meet, Denz and Esteban are one dreadful wisecrack away from homoerotically buttslapping each other. The best thing is that underneath the woeful dialogue and cutscene direction, the whole thing is trying to be serious. Someone thought they were directing an epic tale here, but when you get whiny Americans saying the word ‘arses’ without even bothering to put on an English accent any drama is gleefully flushed away in a maelstrom of laughter and clunk. It’s quite endearing…

Until you play it. Eek. We just had Dark Souls released in the past few weeks. Dark Souls is basically one of the best things ever, so releasing a slightly similar hack and slash rpg hybrid that can’t even begin to compare at the same time is fabulously stupid. Not even having a co-op mode makes up for it. It tries to vary things a bit by adding blocks, counters, finishers (with Python esque head chops) and timed dodges, but when you can get through lots of it by mostly hammering the attack button what’s the point? It’s not broken or anything, but it has literally nothing to get excited about. There’s no edge of your seat panic like in Dark Souls, and you’re not flipping about like a madman Devil May Cry style, so there’s very little thrill in twatting things repeatedly and trudging along like a man who’s tired of life. Which we were after this.

So tired of life actually, that we’re going to end this review now and go to sleep because thanks to the Cursed Crusade we feel so drained. So horribly drained. If you want a budget, fantasy hack and slash co-op game get Lord of the Rings: Return of the King from the last generation. It was the mad notes. And still looks better than this actually. It tries, but it prolapses under its own tedium way before it gets going. Poor Cursed Crusade.