Preview by: Troy Goodfellow

I pity any surviving Templars, or their descendants. This great society of knights and holy warriors has been cast as the villain in any number of games and books and movies, proving that even if the winners don't always write the history, it can be hard to get past a show trial for blasphemy.

Haemimont Games is taking a different path. This time the Templars are the heroes and the hero is you. Set in the 13th century Mediterranean, the royal and papal conspiracy to rid themselves of this meddlesome bunch of knights is just underway. Your primary task is to find the Holy Grail, but in the mean time you have to handle double dealing priests, anxious villagers and the usual bunch of bandits and assassins that line the route.

If you are familiar with Haemimont Games, then this action/adventure RPG may not sound like its cup of tea. Even more remarkable than the fact this city builder company is making an action/rpg is the fact that the game is being made in a modified Tropico 3 engine. The same math that lets you see your political rivals getting hauled in by the secret police now lets you whack on surly knights with a two handed sword.

We were shown a game heavy on the fighting and light on the talking and sneaking. The fifteen hour main storyline has you adventuring in a wide array of terrain and settings, but they will probably all culminate in a bloody encounter or two. The fighting emphasizes combo moves and positioning more than anything else. The combat is primarily melee, but one of the characters you pick up midway through the game is a ranged specialist. Each character has a unique skill tree so they can focus their energies and abilities along a healthy variety of paths.

What stealth there is seems to be a little silly, underlining that this is not that kind of game. The demo included a “follow the cardinal” level which amounted to staying 20 steps behind him. Apparently the guards and novices had little interest in telling Father Evil that two heavily armored men were stalking him. The game is more Rise of the Argonauts than Assassin's Creed, but you need to have some sneaking around, I guess, if only for variety.