Azurik: Rise of Perathia Critic Reviews

It may be a bit strange to handle at first, but once you get the feel of it, Azurik will astound you time and time again with it's lush graphics, wonderful sound, and massive environments.

Power through some early dullness and potential confusion, and you'll find a grand adventure in a rich and colorful game world.

The game demands a certain passion for the action/adventure genre, old and new and school alike. It also requires some time, some patience, and then some more time.

For anyone who played the game for an hour and says it’s no good should put a little more effort into the game because that is what the game is all about. If you expect to get anywhere in a short amount of time you can forget about it.

Overall Azurik whilst not setting the genre on fire with innovation remains still a good adventure game with an RPG style.

In spite of all the things that work well in Azurik (level of detail, plot, saving mechanism) there are too many things (enemy animation, level design) about the game that fall short of what we should expect from an action adventure game on the Xbox.

The plot was as dry as the Sahara desert, the graphics were weak, and the controls were downright comical.

Azurik does not have huge flaws that bring it down. It's a lot of little things that just don't add up to a sum I like.

The main problem is that you will roam freely to the point that you’ll wander around, trying to figure out what to do for much of the game because your goals are not laid out in a clear and linear direction.

Truly stunning visuals, excellent, non-linear map design, hours of playtime, and an innovative magic system help bring it up a notch above the competition. Unfortunately, the control problems, a few technical glitches, a slow start, and a lousy camera hamper the experience.

Every system has its share of dogs, and like a painter writing off bad paintings for being "good to get them out of your system," it's good for the Xbox to get this one out of the way early.

Had the camera views been acceptable, I guess I could have recommended this title to those who care not about plot but love fabulous graphics, unusual monsters, and very basic, predictable, repetitive slash combat.

The game doesn't look anywhere near Xbox quality, and trying to perform some simple tasks like jumping a platform or climbing a rock may take several tries because our hero can't latch onto them on the first try.

Choppy and stiff animations, unexplained frame-rate drops, pop-up when you come around corners and clumsy controls are the first things you are greeted with when you first start.

If flawed controls don't kill the experience for you -- and as a plaform jumping, blade wielding title they certainly do affect the quality of gameplay -- then the constant backtracking and key hunting will eventually drive you to the point of distraction.

Little more than an epic scavenger hunt through vast and varied worlds.

Just about everything about the playcontrol is cumbersome.

What really puts the hurt on this game is the lack of any real challenge or fun.

For every imaginative, interesting and appealing puzzle, there's one long, drawn out, dull key hunt. For every awe-inspiring graphical vista, there's a boring, black, featureless tunnel. For every sparsely spread save point, there's a (or rather, many) long plummets to unexpected insta-death.

It’s also home to some of the most pathetic voice acting I’ve ever heard.