For a brand-new game, Nival Interactive's Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Soul seems awfully familiar. It's by the same Russian development team that did the simple Rage of Mages role-playing games a few years ago, and it has much in common with those games, though Evil Islands sports its own fully 3D engine. The game involves an all-too-familiar tale of a hero who must discover his identity (as in Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Summoner, and countless others) while slaughtering umpteen monsters in an isometric fantasy setting (as in Diablo, Darkstone, Nox, and countless others). You'll quickly see that originality is not the strong point of Evil Islands. Still, as with many of the games it borrows from, it can be very addicting. Hours will fly past as you progress from one exploit to another, hooked on the hack-and-slash formula that was made popular by Blizzard's hit Diablo. So even though it has a worn-out premise and a host of other shortcomings, somehow these things won't matter much to you when you're cutting down packs of monsters and finding one world-saving thingamabob after another.

Zak will need to use a stealthy approach in many situations.

The story begins, as it seemingly always does, with a young man waking up with no knowledge of his past. In this case, at least he remembers his name is Zak. Hints of his origins are soon provided by peasants, who greet sleepyhead by proclaiming him to be "the chosen" and then flee in awe. You'll immediately realize that this messiahlike figure is expected to save these helpless citizens from evil. The peasants' village soon becomes the base of operations from which you'll undertake various quests in the land of Gipath. These quests are either assigned to you or hinted at by locals, such as Erfar the Silvertongue, Babur the Tightfist, and Gort the Skullcrusher. The ensuing adventures never amount to much more than errand-boy jobs made dangerous with standard fantasy foes such as orcs, goblins, trolls, and undead, though the goals are mixed up just enough that the proceedings rarely grow stale.

The characters in Evil Islands are somewhat different from those in traditional fantasy RPGs, in that there are no set character classes in the game. Experience points gained from killing foes and completing quests are applied to boost skill in melee, archery, stealing, and in three types of magic skills. With this system, you can choose to build a fighter who's powerful in hand-to-hand combat, an archer who's good at a distance, or a mage who's handy with spells--or a combination of any of these. A wide range of available abilities can likewise be purchased using the experience points you've saved up. A mage might save up for improved skill in lightning magic, while a warrior might use his points on sword mastery. It's a fairly open-ended system.

If there's anything else original about the world of Evil Islands, it's that the initial setting is closer to the Stone Age than the medieval setting that's more common in fantasy-themed games. Characters start off wearing rough leather clothing and wielding stone weapons, and only later progress to more standard fantasy gear like metal swords and armor. This is a little off-putting at first--particularly when you see that Gort the Skullcrusher is decked out in buckskins like some sort of fantasy version of Davy Crockett--though in time you'll come to appreciate the subtle twist that this gives to the typical swords-and-sorcery theme.

The quests in Evil Islands are simplistic, but plentiful.

What's more disconcerting about the game's characters is the truly horrific voice acting found throughout. Zak basically sounds like a reject from the show Will & Grace. Lines like, "Oh! Are we not frightening!" and "I love magic!" quickly distinguish Zak from other, more masculine fantasy heroes. Other characters in Evil Islands thankfully lack Zak's quirks (though the Gipath villagers do speak in deep Scottish brogues), but they're also ineptly voiced. Most enunciate every word like it's the last they're ever going to speak. This can seriously dampen your enjoyment of the game, as your own party members can often be so obnoxious that you'll want to send them to their doom. On the other hand, you might just as soon appreciation the campiness of the extremely awkward dialogue in the game.

Even if you could ignore the voice acting, the audio in Evil Islands still is nothing to write home about. The musical score is rather repetitive and uses the same bland notes in every battle throughout the game. However, the atmospheric effects found in the game are excellent. The chirping of crickets and the howling of wolves echoing in the night are welcome touches of authenticity that help the game seem a little more believable.