Features

The point and click adventure pioneer Ron Gilbert is back with a new puzzler that's been 25 years in the making - welcome then to The Cave for Xbox 360 and PC.

The archaic point and-click-adventure - it's a genre that's been declared dead more times than Doctor Who. So it's perhaps high time it got a makeover, and who better to reinvent it than Ron Gilbert, maker of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion? The Cave sees all that pointing and clicking banished, replaced with pseudo-3D side-scrolling platforming action through some beautifully cartoon-esque subterranean environments.

Item-packed inventories have also been shown the (trap)door - only a single item can be held at any one time by your onscreen character. And for those of us sick of squinting like OAPs at our screens trying to spot vital items, all important objects are quite literally labelled. So far, so good then. But what about, you know, the game itself?

Before heading out, create a party made up of three characters chosen from an eclectic cast of seven - for example, the knight who wants to prove his valour to a princess or the adventurer who wants to hunt down the greatest of treasures. Each has their own special ability plus special area within The Cave but more intriguingly, their own dark motives for why they are really in there risking life and limb.

The Cave is not only a place to explore but a living entity too, spouting out often hilarious narration as you traverse its many locations that are made up of subterranean medieval castles, amusement parks, nuclear silos and more. The gameplay itself has a smattering of Trine to it with the three characters sometimes needing to be used as a team to solve the game's puzzles.

And talking of puzzles, there's plenty of them, all presented with Gilbert's trademark comedic style. While there's no hint system to run crying 'mummy' to (Gilbert's only concession to the old skool), the puzzles are never so obscure as to leave you wanting to punch your TV right out of your living room window.

What you're left with then is something refreshingly new but reassuringly old that offers funny characters, suitably whacky puzzles and an imaginative storyline that begs for multiple playthroughs. Twenty-five years well-spent we reckon, Ron.