Undead Knights uses a realistic visual style, although the setting is ultra-fantastic. Literally set against a fantasy backdrop, the storyline veers into exotic territory, so the art follows. Expect to see lots of dripping, splashing gore - not surprising, considering the game's title, is it? If you aren't signed up for kids' games and like the design style of God of War or any other 3D platforming titles, you'll be in familiar territory here. The major difference is that this presents as a third-person action game, so you'll manage a behind-the-back camera yourself through most of the game. We rarely find this presentation style intuitive, and Undead Knights is no exception. To be fumbling around for the proper viewing angle while you battle a stage boss is unacceptable. We want to fight bad guys, not our camera controls.

Some of the things that Undead Knights gets right are the visceral zombie effects, and a focus on viewing the action from a distance. Rather than rolling up your sleeves and wading in like the typical action hero, you'll get a chance to survey the action as it develops. The splatterfest that passes for battle actions in Undead Knights may be more than some gamers want, especially if they have weak stomachs. The sound and effects are okay, but nothing during the game really approaches the high production values on the opening movie segment. We like opening movies as much as the next guy, but why not save some of that goodness for the actual game? Busy battlefields, interesting settings with lots of breakable items scattered about for the discerning treasure-hunter, and big, ugly enemies that stomp about each level with evil glee are all parts of what keeps Undead Knights from getting old.

The ideas behind Undead Knights are those drawn from serious genres like the God Game Black & White or more whimsical settings such as Tokobots for PSP, or Pikmin for various Nintendo platforms. It might be fair to lump all these under the Real-Time Strategy genre, but most RTS games have much larger ambition and scale. The reason we don't mention The Sims is that there's a difference between control for the sake of simulation and control as a means to a specific end. Undead Knights might best fit into the new category we'll create right now called Remote Gaming. This instance happens to be a mash-up, the Remote/Action type of genre. What's neat about Undead Knights compared to other strategy titles is that you actively participate in the action, rather than engaging only through your agents.

The story premise of the game involves a power struggle in a land ruled by kings and royal families. When one king is overcome by the influence of a seductress and sheds royal blood, the ghosts of his victims return for payback. The embodiment of this dark vengeance is the character you directly control, a seven-foot tall warrior clad in black armor with streaks of blood and a huge, black sword. If this sounds like the typical set-up for any action game, you'll be surprised to learn that your warrior isn't capable of mopping up his opponents without a little help. This assistance comes in the form of a special power granted to you, the power to turn opposing soldiers into the game's titular Undead Knights. Once "turned," the once loyal soldiers will now do your bidding. Not only will they directly attack enemies, but they can also come in handy for knocking down obstructions, or becoming a necessary encumbrance to weaken big bosses. The number of things you can do with your undead soldiers isn't limited by a bit more than your imagination, but the amount of interesting gameplay elements that found their way into Undead Knights makes it fun to play through at least twice. You can spend one entire turn through the game just beating down enemies to make progress, then go through again with the goal of racking up top scores. Nothing exceptional in the area of multiplayer here, other than some expansion concepts to the Solo campaign. You'll have to be content with the solo play, to get the most out of Undead Knights, and it's fortunately enough to keep you occupied for a while.

The length of time you spend with Undead Knights may depend largely on which of the three available difficulty levels you select. On Easy, you'll find the enemies put up a good fight, but generally can be dispatched without too much strategy. On the highest level of difficulty, even foot-soldiers will resist and come at you swinging, which makes it especially difficult to accomplish the remote control of your undead army. Controlling your zombie force requires complete concentration, and when you take enough damage in the midst of your attack, it will distract you and break your command. This becomes especially noticeable during boss battles, where there are often large contingents of enemy fighters besieging you while you try to take down the boss or bosses. Progressing through each level requires a good sense of when to deploy your army versus when to focus on building troops, or even to attack directly. On the plus side, the simple goals (e.g. "Destroy the soldiers") in a level can be accomplished in more than one way. The downside is that ratcheting up the difficulty doesn't change the overall flow of battles to any great degree. The greater change in how you play will likely be the difference between constant brute-force attacks early on, and more strategic gameplay later when you learn more special moves. Using the undead as more than just your underlings is the big epiphany - you can throw them, chain attack them while they are in proximity to or attached to an enemy for additional impact, or simply smash them like bombs when surrounded by enemies. Again, there isn't any emergent gameplay happening here, but the wide range of options while you play keeps things more challenging than the average action game.

Building a game like Undead Knights probably involves lots of challenging decisions. How precise should the control be? How to execute the undead-turning technique? How to have both meaningful battle controls amidst all the other stuff we want to do? Finally, how to design levels that are built for remote, rather than direct, interaction? On the whole, Undead Knights displays good decision-making and tries its best to make things easy for the player. Some features are intuitive, while others take getting used to. The action controls are easiest to comprehend, because they behave like 99.9% of other action games out there. A button to attack, a button to jump, etc. The command to "turn" the soldiers attacking you is mapped to the circle (O) face button, but you'll only have to tap, rather than hold this. Turning is easiest after you've worn down your enemies, and even the weakest soldiers are simpler when you've softened them up with a few love taps. More advanced controls like grabbing an undead soldier and flinging him are simple enough in theory, but fall prey to all the issues of 3D control and 3D camera. You'll find that Undead Knights is very forgiving, making liberal decisions in your favor when it comes to grabbing and throwing enemies. Other more advanced controls are introduced gradually, and some move into the realm of mini-games, as you are asked to tap or alternate buttons in a particular sequence or rhythm. We never found this to be gimmicky, especially since it usually only comes into play for special obstacles. For the most part, when you hit the shoulder button to command your troops, you'll see a targeting reticule along with some text that clearly states what you can expect the zombies to do.

The knock on Undead Knights would mostly be that it doesn't offer enough variety in terms of the type of agents you can control, or allow you to sequence commands as we're used to in lots of other resource/strategy or time-management games. We understand full-blown RTS wasn't the goal here, but Undead Knights often feels too linear. Veteran gamers fond of strategy or sim games will definitely run through quickly and feel a bit underwhelmed. A broader audience, looking for something with adult themes, is likely to be turned on by Undead Knights. Quirky and inventive, there's nothing here that breaks away from previous entries in this style of command-and-control game, but good execution makes this a worthy rental at the very least.