If you're looking for a good, fun hack-n-slash, you really can't go wrong with Dark Alliance.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is a fairly old hack-n-slash RPG by Snowblind Studios. The game is about an adventurer conquering evil and making a name for himself in the world of Baldur's Gate. It's a fairly generic story, but regardless is an incredibly fun game in its own right.
The gameplay for this game is definetely its strong point. I like to think of it as the AC/DC of games-it's catchy, simplistic, fun to play in groups, and mostly, it's great stuff. You start of with the clothes on your back and a rusty knife, but eventually you can aspire to a knight in shining armor (damsel in distress not included, unfortunately).
The game is very straightforward. There are but one or two puzzles through the entire game, and platforming is vitually nonexistant, thankfully. The battle system works like this:
A monster rushes at you. You press a button on your controller, and you swing your sword, loose an arrow, or cast a spell. Whatever attack you choose, it does a certain amount of damage to the target. However, you can only attack faster if you've upgraded that certain attack. Mindlessly tapping the attack button won't get you far. This isn't Track and Field for the NES, people.
Basically, the game likes to focus on what it does best, which is killing, getting cool weapons, and basically being a badass. And frankly, I like that too.
Obviously this game wouldn't be much of an RPG without an experience system, right? Well, it works just like the rest of them game-it's simple, esay to use, and it works well. When you kill a monster, you get the experience, and the experience is held until you reach a certain point. When that point is reached, you recieve skill point equal to your level. So if you just got to level 15, you get 15 skill points. The skill points are also accumalative. You can spend the skill points on a variety of things, and some skills are exclusive to your player. (Oh, since I forgot to mention this earlier, you may choose between an archer, a sorcerer, and a berserker.)
For example, the archer might get an exclusive skill for fire arrows, letting him rain fiery, burny death upon his enemies. Or the Sorcerer might get a spell that lets her freeze anything she touches.
Freezing everything you touch wouldn't be any fun if there wasn't anything to freeze, huh? Well, you lucky dog, there are plenty of enemy types for you to slay in a number of different fashions. Everything from gnolls to giants are there to kill, and they all have a healthy amount of blood to splatter around.
Let's talk about water now. Everything that's alive needs it to live, and so does this game, oddly enough. You see, the water effects in this game are absolutely SPECTACULAR. However, nothing else really stands out visually, except maybe the particle effects. Also, the game's areas are nice and different. I never felt deja vu while playing this game.
The sound is iffy. The orchestral tracks are great, however the FX are crap, basically. But then again, this isn't a atmospheric game. It's a game where you kill loads of ugly things. So....in my mind, the sound really doesn't matter to me that much. Some people might be miffed, but I suggest you don't let it bother you that much.
The value of this game is also iffy. You can play this game over again by yourself if you want, but to me the very best feature of the game is it's co-op. It is so much more fun to play this game with a friend. It's easier, there's lots of things to compete for (such as gold, or experience), and it's always more fun with a partner then to go at it alone. Seems like a lot of things are like that. There's no Xbox live though, so you have to get a friend to haul his ass to your house and play on one TV.
There are a few shortcomings to the game. One, the graphics really aren't anything special, two, niether is the sound, and three, the platforming. It took me weeks to grow back the hair I pulled out of my head because of the GOD-AWFUL platforming. It's only a little part of the game, but that stuff is really tough.
This game is for all three platforms (GC, XBOX, PS2) and it's very cheap now, since it's been almost 4 years since it's been released. Do yourself a favor and pick it up. Just don't cut yourself - those swords are sharp!