14 DAY TRIAL // Seeing as how there's a bit of a drought period between the end of April and the middle of May in terms of video game releases, we decided to check out The First Templar, an action adventure title from Bulgarian developer Haemimont Games and published by Kalypso for the PC and Xbox 360.
The game promises to put you in the shoes of a Knight Templar, during the first crusade, who is trying to uncover the legendary Holy Grail.
Hyped as an immersive cooperative experience, The First Templar is definitely an interesting title, so let's have a quick look and see what's what.
The First Templar has a tough job ahead of it, as being set during the crusades and concentrating on the Templar order of Knights, makes it comparable to Ubisoft's blockbuster Assassin's Creed franchise.
While it doesn't match up to the production values of the series made by the French company, the First Templar is definitely a pretty interesting game.
The combat is simple, as the characters can use their swords and shields in the heat of combat, chaining together combos and unleashing special moves, while trying to defend themselves if caught by a surprise attack.
While the animations are pretty fluid, with bonus points going to some of the stylish execution moves, the whole game feels a bit choppy, with frequent one-second freezes putting a stop to gameplay.
While there is no doubt this is a sign that the game is trying to render a pretty big open world, it does make it hard to play it on Ultra or High settings, even on a powerful computer.
The main hook for The First Templar is that you can freely jump between the main character, Celian, and his follower, in battle with the press of a button.
If you want to focus on just a single character, but don't want the pretty dumb AI to control the other, then you can play cooperatively with a buddy, or a complete stranger, depending on your preferences.
Judging by this first glace, The First Templar is definitely an interesting title. You can check out gameplay from the introductory mission below.