KYN (Hands-On) (PC) Preview

KYN takes for its inspiration a Viking theme, but exists very much in a fantasy world. It's probably about as much authentic Viking as, say, How to Train Your Dragon is - so expect the horned helmets, and, thus, expect the amateur historian gamer community to start grumblingly. It's no real complaint, though, as reality doesn't correlate with fun, and that's what KYN aims to be.

Without much in the way of cut-scenes, the game introduces its main protagonists and gives the player control straight away. Make a selection with the mouse and tell them where to go, select the spell to use, or click on things to fight. It's a simple enough system, and works as well here as it does in any game that uses it.

Where this has a slight twist, though, is in the button that can be used to slow down time, thus giving more thinking time to react and plan. Many games these days have "bullet time" style systems, but this pulls it off particularly well, with many of the magic abilities becoming quite tactical to use in conjunction with it.

If a character is being overwhelmed in a fight, perhaps slow down time, and trigger a spell to scare some of the enemies away, thus, giving time to lay a trap for them when they return. Or maybe use the time the enemies are running away to resurrect some nearby guards to help. Or simply rain down arrows on them as they run.

The system works great and makes fighting as much about quick, smart thinking, as it does about reactions. It's certainly the highlight of the game so far. Unfortunately, in the early portions at least, much of the rest is very standard. There are wolves and skeletons that attack, as well as the odd treasure chest to loot, hidden in the corners of the landscape. While it's all well presented, the imagination visually in the designs seems quite lacking (why is it just human skeletons, for instance?).

After the introductory level, there is a gorgeously laid out town that seems to form the hub for future adventures. It's fairly large with many people dotted about, yet in the short sample played seemed purely cosmetic. One person gave a side-quest to collect some wood - something that didn't seem possible to do locally. Hopefully in the full game this area will be packed with optional quests and things to do besides visiting the shop and the main quest giver.

The first main mission consists of visiting an icy area, and much like the other areas, it is all very standard in terms of concept. However, rather than merely running about killing stuff as before, this mission requires helping villages evacuate while fighting off regularly attacking waves of enemies. It's a nice variation to see so early on, which gives hope that the game is filled with plenty of these "events" and objectives, rather than being nothing but "kill and loot," like many games of this ilk end up as.