In the game, you can control your player in a 2D environment, but on a 3D plane. Much like classic sidescrollers, while the action predominantly involves moving right to left (or vice versa), you can go further back or forward, and mayn times areas you need to access will be down or up; once in the areas, of course, it's back to moving sideways.

Unfortunately, one of the weaker areas of the game was the online portion, specifically the community. During my days playing "Shadowtale," I ran into a handful of great people who were a blast to play with. More often, however, I ran into people who only made my experience worse. Standing around and doing nothing as I was dying, or waiting for me to clear an area before it allowed us to move on.

At this time, there's also no way to invite friends to play, and the game randomly assigns a server when you login. So, if you want to meet up with friends for a session, one of you is going to have to keep logging in and out until you pop up on the same server. And if one of you disconnects…

Still, "Shadowtale" shows a lot of promise. It's a very unique game in the genre, it's playable in a browser (even if it does require a huge ongoing download), and it brings to mind the days of text-based MUDs and staying up all night awash in the green and black glow from the monitor. It won't compete with the bigger, flashier titles, but "Shadowtale" is certainly creating a niche for itself, and don't be surprised if you hear more about it in the future.

Review Brendon Lindsey
October 10, 2009