Published: Monday, 23rd March, 2009 12:30pm

X Blades

X-Box 360, PS3, PC

Lara Croft has a lot to answer for. Often mimicked but never matched, the original Tomb Raider has spawned countless feisty fighting relic-hunting woman wannabes, and X Blades gives us another such character to add to the list.

Our heroine, Ayumi yearns to find relics in a way reminiscent of Eidos' favourite daughter, but is a considerably less interesting character. However, what she lacks in personality she makes up for in curves - oh yes, she's appealing to the gamerboys' love of pneumatic feisty fighting women if nothing else. She does have a very annoying voice though.

This is a solid enough game. Rather than plumping for bullets or blades Ayumi has gunblades - which encompass both quite nicely and mean no faffing with swapping equipment mid fight. But that's not all she uses to blight her enemies, with magic spell combos providing a break from the button mashing fun - if you collect enough souls of the fallen to buy the good ones.

The cut scenes are at times stunning, but the world seems slightly less gorgeous when you're actually walking around it. The gameplay is fun – the enemies are varied, which means you need to scope out what their weaknesses are and which spells or weaponry are going to work against them before wading in to batter them or you'll come to a sticky end very quickly.

Overall this is not the kind of game that is going to light up your world, but it's eminently playable, even with our slightly irritating heroine. Younger games will appreciate the simplicity of it, although if you're a hardcore gaming who loves involving plots and missions then this really isn't going to cut the mustard.

Three stars

* X Blades is out now for the X-Box 360, Playstation 3 and PC.