Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood

This is one of the most entertaining games we've had in the office for quite some time. The entire team huddled around one of the office PCs for the best part of an hour watching this game, even though there were more pressing matters at hand. Laugh? We nearly died. Arcatera has the most hilarious intro sequences ever seen in a PC game, bar none. Example: the female magic user gasps in horror as her guardian is killed in front of her. Worried that she might be next, she hides under a blanket on the floor. The assassin searches the room and finds several items, but not our heroine who is standing right beside him (classic scene from The Life Of Brian springs to mind: "We've found a spoon sir"). Two years later our heroine emerges from under the blanket, announcing it's time she got over it and perhaps she should do some adventuring. Upon 'searching' the front of a castle she comes across in a nearby town, she finds not useful items or loot but, er, some people. Castle guards appear out of nowhere as if by magic. It's classic stuff, complete with comedy accents, and if it wasn't for the fact the humour is completely unintentional this game would go down in comedy history.

Sadly, the entertainment stops there. The game itself is utterly awful. Five years out of date graphically, and sporting one of the worst interfaces we've ever seen, Arcatera fails to impress on every level imaginable. The combat is spectacularly bad, with characters missing their enemies completely, despite the fact they're right on top of them, and a user-unfriendly spell system simply adds to the confusion in the heat of battle. Not quite a classic then, but you'd probably guessed that by now.