The Action RPG genre has been on a hiatus for a while and has taken a back seat to action games that have RPG elements. Ask what most people remember as the golden age of action RPGs and they will undoubtedly say Blizzard's Diablo series. Once in a blue moon one of these types of games will pop up and gain some attention. Sacred for the PC is such a title. Having to drudge up old reviews from Metacritic just to get a sense of what the game was like (I'm not the least bit a hardcore PC gamer by any definition), I was pleasantly surprised to read many good things about the game. Why am I talking about this? The reason is that a preview copy of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel landed on my doorstep in what appears to be a package fallen from Heaven. Although, the version I have is for the PC, but there are PS3 and Xbox 360 versions planned.

The one thing you can take away from Sacred 2 is that there is a level of customization and depth rarely seen, let alone achieved, that will have you endlessly tinkering away to fine tune your character and the world you interact with. The first obvious layer to the game is you can either play a "light" or "shadow" campaign, it attempts to evoke a Knights of the Old Republic style where you have the choice to play as a good or bad guy. From there, more layers peel off. You have a handful of character types to choose from. Per tradition, each type has unique weaknesses and strengths to suit different play styles. Progressing through levels leads to different powers and abilities. Think of World of Warcraft's talent trees and you have the idea.



As you might have gathered, there is a lot of borrowing from successful franchises and fitting them into Sacred 2. Because these are already proven concepts, they work in favor of the game. Sacred 2's identity stems from these elements and carves out a space where it should get noticed amid the fantasy juggernauts like Diablo and WoW.

Because of the action nature of the title and the epic journey you embark on, you can expect a great deal of repetition. That isn't necessarily a bad thing because of the depth you find in customization. What really gets Sacred 2 motor revving is the multiplayer. You can grab a friend and you'll be able to play two players on the same system or you can go crazy and get 4 people on 4 different Xboxes. In all reality, when it comes to co-op features while I'm slashing through a dungeon with some friends and a six-pack, everything else doesn't really matter as long as I'm having fun.

We'll be keeping an eye on this title because this is one of the very, very few action RPGs on the next-gen horizon. The only others I can think of that are coming down the pipe are Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Am I missing any?