Imagine two paths that keep separating and coming back together and that's the general arc for the game itself. Depending on the choice that's made the goals in the levels will be different and there will be different areas unique to each path as well as common ones. Once in the game there is a very early choice to continue the path of the good or to jump ship and become a player for Team Evil. It's a tiny change, but a world of difference. Now, the two buttons can be used for commonly used offensive spells while the other buttons can be used for defensive or group-effect spells that don't need to be used on a moment's notice. This is done without assigning a spell to any button. YES NO Now, while in the d-pad menu to assign the spells the square button can instantly trigger a spell.

Since it was a bit of a pain to have to assign spells to one of the buttons in order to use them this meant that the two spells were the best and used often while the others gathered dust. Once in the game itself, the d-pad can be used to assign two spells to the triangle and circle buttons. Just like in Champions of Norrath the spells here can be assigned to the eight different directions of the d-pad. Once the magic does get going the Iksar can brawl with the best of them and with a more intuitive spell system they're even more effective. For a little while the Iksar faithful will see a rough road ahead where each battle must be decided more carefully than the Vah Shir. It's not a flaw in so many words, but the magic users take a little while to ramp up their powers before they can truly kick some ass with both spells and physical attacks. In playing through the single-player mode with the Iksar we remembered something about the hack'n'slash genre: starting out with a magic dude sucks. It's a beautiful thing to behold really and these new characters hold oh so much promise in the quests ahead. The Iksar are the magic-heavy characters and the Vah Shir are berserkers who can jump right into a pool of enemies and turn them into a huge puddle of blood and gore and pieces of gold. The two biggest additions to the world of Norrath are the Iksar and the Vah Shir, two very different races to play with.

In both the offline and, yes, the online there have been some improvements to make the hacking and slashing appealing all over again.

It's the little thing in life that make it bad or good, but today we got a taste of something awesome, a chance to play through some Champions: Return to Arms, the sequel to Champions of Norrath.

Some days bring along a new treat like your breakfast spilling all over your white shirt or maybe the cute girl at the coffee stand remembers your name.

Champions return to arms pc