Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone is yet another game bearing the Dungeons & Dragons name, which, as I am vaguely aware of, has somewhat of a following in certain parts. For a game brandishing the D&D license, Demon Stone is oddly action-oriented and straightforward in that pick-up-and-play-for-10-hours kind of way. If you are familiar with Stormfront Studios' previous console effort, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, then you already know what you are getting into. Much like The Two Towers, Demon Stone is a linear action title that pits your party of three destiny-bound adventurers against an army of demons fit for several Peter Jackson epics.

Before you hail the hasty bus to Conclusionville, Demon Stone is actually much more than reconstituted chucks of The Two Towers with a fresh paint-job. For one, it features an exciting, if a little by-the-book, plot that stands in stark contrast to the story-telling approach of its predecessor, intimated as 'go watch the movie'. Demon Stone is penned by R.A. Salvatore, renowned fantasy author responsible for many novels in the Forgotten Realms as well as the creation of the character Drizzt, everyone's favorite Drow (who makes a guest appearance), and it shows. It will be apparent to even those unfamiliar with Forgotten Realms lore (myself included) that the scribe obviously has great command over the setting and uses it to great effect both to enhance the story as well as the action. The story moves at a break-neck pace that facilitates the onscreen mayhem perfectly and remains engaging throughout, never failing to be interesting or take a backseat to the action ' something that happens all too often in games.

In a refreshing twist, the land of Faerun is terrorized by not one, but two powerful demon generals from two opposing races. This rivalry from hell gave a wise wizard (voiced by Patrick Stewart) the chance to imprison both menaces in a demon stone, damning them to spend eternity as roomies. Enter three factory-sealed adventurers (chip on shoulder included but common sense sold separately) that inadvertently release the pair, who, if it's possible, become even more bent on obliterating each other, and in the process, Faerun and its denizens.

From there on, it's a chaotic race against time for our three heroes/bumbling-fools to put an end to' well, the end. While the narrative isn't anything groundbreaking, memorable characters, sharp dialogue and a series of plot twists make for an engaging tale. The two villains are deliciously wicked and their complete disregard of everything else, including our hapless heroes, in their bid to destroy one another commands respect, and is also immensely entertaining to witness.

While the gameplay of Demon Stone will be immediately familiar to The Two Towers veterans, as well as most fans of the genre, it feels more like an evolutionary step in many regards. You begin the game as Rannek, a disgraced human fighter seeking to disappear only to happen upon a town under siege by orcs. His interference allows Zhai, a half-drow rogue to escape captivity, and soon thereafter, they are aided by a sorcerer, Illius, who was drawn to the area by an inexplicable force. This initial sequence introduces you to the controls for each of the three characters, which are largely identical with a few noted differences. All the characters can perform two standard attacks, as well as a finishing move, expel projectiles and block incoming blows.

Combos are also available by pressing the correct button sequence (detailed in the pause menu once acquired) to produce longer and deadlier attacks. Each character also possesses a special attack that requires powering up a rage meter first. Since the three adventurers spend much of the game time fighting side-by-side after the initial tutorial, they can also perform an appropriately devastating team special attack that require all three characters to max out their rage meters. Zhai, arguably the most interesting character in terms of gameplay, even has a stealth mode that allows her to hide in shadows where she can execute her foes with the press of a button. Overall, the controls are quite easy to master despite having three characters to play as, and the wide variety of attacks.

Even though Demon Stone is a strictly single-player game, all three characters will be on-screen at the same time and you can freely switch between them at any time, leaving the other two in the somewhat capable hands of the game's artificial intelligence. Don't count on them to understand the objectives of given situations, but they do a good job of not dying most of the time and can even get you out of tight spots' randomly. Therefore, even though the game ends if any one of your three heroes bleed out, more often than not, you only have yourself to blame for failing.

The game features a fairly basic character advancement system where you can progress up to level 10 by the end of the game. With every 2 levels reached, you can purchase new combos and abilities. For example, Illius can replace his main magical attack with increasingly more powerful spells such as raining meteors down on your enemies. In between chapters you can also upgrade your equipment in the form of better armors, stronger weapons, and other ability-enhancing trinkets. A nice visual touch sees your wardrobe changes reflected on your characters' appearance, even in all of the cutscenes. There's not enough variety in either the ability upgrades or equipment upgrades to allow you to develop the characters to suit your individual tastes, but that's a small gripe for a game that focuses solely on the intensity of the action.

Demon Stone could have been a fairly shallow hack-n-slash experience if not for cleverly staged and dynamic action sequences that populate each of the 10 chapters of the game. Objectives are constantly changing, as are the richly detailed environments. You may find yourself charged with stopping enemy onslaughts, and minutes later find yourself protecting individuals as they go about securing the area only to then face off with a formidable boss character. This technique was pioneered in The Two Towers and fine-tuned here to even better effect, allowing each chapter of the game to have many twists and turns that blend together quite seamlessly.

Innovations aside, Demon Stone retains some elements that were as clunky as they were when they first appeared in The Two Towers. The game still relies on throwing an overwhelming number of enemies at you almost all of the time. The game isn't challenging because of some particularly clever behavior on the part of your foes, but because you are always ridiculously outnumbered. For those that tire easily of this approach to action gaming, Demon Stone will likely still make you throw down the controller in frustration.

To make matters worse, the game features a fixed-camera that seem to enjoy choosing interesting angles to view the action rather than functional ones. One of the worst examples of style over function sees the camera leaving your merry band of heroes in the background fighting a horde of enemies while it chases after the two villains in the foreground fighting to the death. While the cinematic camera angles add to the intensity of the moment more often than they hinder, it is still a nuisance especially considering the rather challenging gameplay.

Visually, Demon Stone is a treat to behold. Unlike other dungeon crawls, this particular adventure takes us on a journey to an unusually large number of breathtaking locations in the land of Faerun, from crystal caves to ethereally beautiful Gemspark mines to the lush exotic jungles of Chult. Large scaled battles are waged constantly in these diverse environments featuring detailed and memorable characters, with little impact on the game's performance. While technically the game's visuals stay fairly close to that of The Two Towers, a title released more than two years ago, the artistry involved in visualizing the Forgotten Realms more than compensates for any technical antiquities. Worth mentioning also are the expertly animated cutscenes that truly bring the characters to life, especially that of the two villains - they truly feel like powerful and sinister beings bent on choking the life out of each other and everything in the world.

The sound work in Demon Stone is almost on par with The Two Towers, not an easy feat considering that The Two Towers borrowed so heavily from its source material - an award-winning soundtrack from the motion pictures. Battles sound frantic and very, very large and the music score is catchy and appropriately grand. The voice-work is also solid, with Patrick Stewart and Michael Clarke Duncan both lending their distinguished voice talents. The soundtrack, as a whole, emphasizes the fierce action of the battles, the intense drama during story sequences and provides an extra layer of polish to an already impressively presented game.