Usually, we're suckers for this sort of thing: a co-op–enabled tale of a young, sword-carrying Templar seeking his missing dad amid much decimated Euro-madness. Throw in an unfortunate curse that lets our hero wield fire and fend off a stalking personification of Death, plus some buddy-cop banter...

+ Plenty of checklist-type stats and collectibles for completists; online campaign co-op

? Why's Esteban's voice-acting so crazy over-the-top

The Crusades remain mostly underused in gaming. Recently we had the mediocre First Templar, and now developer Kylotonn is taking a stab at it with The Cursed Crusade. The Crusades are ripe for...

+ Combat can be satisfying; + Co-op is fun; + The leveling system

Glitches hamper the experience; The writing is painful; Lockon mechanic is broken

UK REVIEW--One thing should already be clear about The Crusades: They were extremely unpleasant. A Christian military campaign quickly turned sour, with knights becoming little more than mercenaries as they rampaged around and sacked cities across the Holy Land.

Lots of weapon combinations to play around with

Sluggish; awkward controls; Fighting is a chore; Far too repetitive in all aspects; A multitude of technical failings; Entirely forgettable story

Set in the back drop of a holy crusade gone wrong, The Cursed Crusade follows the exploits of Denz de Bayle and Esteban Noviembre, a templar and his unlikely companion that share a hellish nightmare state where Death in physical form seeks to claim their souls.

This game finds a way to turn exciting-sounding historical events, such as the siege of the Croatian city Zara, into linear marches through static environments cluttered with a bunch of melee battles that all play out the same.

The protagonists of The Cursed Crusade are damned to hell, trying to escape death and seek redemption by fighting in the French holy war. Unfortunately, they're trapped in a game with few redeeming qualities, a dull, pretentious hack-and-slash that fails in almost every way.

Um... where's the ending?

Wow; this history is really accurate

One terrible boss fight is bad-but the exact same boss four times in a row

Games Xtreme takes a look at the Templar's Curse in the Cursed Crusade.

The game is alright. It relies pretty well on your switching into hell mode to fight a lot of the time. It's cool the first couple of times, but wears thin pretty fast. Your weapons break fast in this game, which is okay because with the sheer number of enemies your killing, replacing them is easy.

I highly disagree with the other ratings here. This game reminds me a LOT of Dragon's Dogma, with a simpler(is it?) combo system. That being said it's not the BEST game I've played, but I enjoyed the combos, and the demon mode, and the cross bow was fun.