Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade Reviews

One of the greatest hack n' slash games ever! Very tactical; Positioning, resource and skill usage, and weapon reach are key! You've got 3 classes of melee weapons with different uses plus FPS bow and arrow. It's PS2 old, but aged really, really well! The story is sorta religious-cliché, but the sceneries are very interesting, and the whole concept of diving down to hell (in the last 25% of the game) to hunt demons and the big bad is always awesome! IMO a better game than most arcadey AAA PS2 hack n'slash'es of the time, and better than most HnS games of today.

It's a game of its time... If you like action-adventure/hack and slash games from that era and don't mind an occasional bullshit difficulty spike(THAT FINAL BOSS RESPAWNING HIS MINIONS CAN GO SUCK A FAT COCK) and have a craving for a templar based game - I guess you couldn't find anything better than this. However this game's sequel is a different, much more interesting discussion for... another time.

A good game if you like old style hack and slash-ers. A lotta combat here, a little puzzle there. My only complaint would be the finale that hikes the difficulty way up from the level just prior. Aside from that the game is what you'd expect. Not sure if the game has official controller support, as I didn't try keybinding my gamepad. But Steam's controller remapping works quite well here.

As a fan of sword fighting, I have no idea how I missed this game so far. Combat is great and has some unexpected depth especially for 2004. This is of course no Dark Souls but this is imho alot more than pure hack n slash. The beginning of the game tricks you into thinking the opposite despite the brilliant and fluid combat animations, as you mow down through enemies fairly easily with minimum use of blocking and breaking guards, but the second part of the game definitely amps up the technical difficulty and you progressively need to play a lot more strategically. The game never gets hardcore though, as you are given fairly generous tools to keep your HP up, and save for a few puzzles here and there the gameplay inovations stop here. Comparisons have been made before to the aforementioned Dark Souls, and it's true you can't help shaking a feeling of "what if ..." as you play the game, at least I and others did. It's a shame too the game is fairly obscure due in fact to a lack of US release back in the days. I'm sure modders could turn it into something awesome with tweakings here and there. The base is truly great. No technical issues on my end so far. Game runs great at 1080p. No crashes. It's also really pretty for it's age, and again the animations are awesome. Story isn't amazing but does the job. As a medieval enthusiast I enjoy it. Nice to see Crusaders portrayed in a positive light in gaming for a change. I customized a controller config for myself similar to Dark Souls controls (triggers for light/heavy attacks + blocking etc ...). You can find it in Steam's community gamepad configs if you want to give it a try. Works quite well.

why does this game from 2004 run just fine on my ultrawide monitor but fallout 3 crashes every single time. for real though, i wanted this game on the gamecube and learned it would not run on american gamecubes since it was a EU release. luckily its on steam for 10$!!! fun game to hack and slash and not think so much ! need more classic games like this on steam.

One of those rare games where you can play as a genuine Templar knight. It's a very atmospheric title that has some pretty nice audio-visuals and animations for its age The game is also quite challenging but mostly due to the clunky nature of combat system that could've used some mechanics to make the player attacks feel more fluid and dynamic like parrying and dodging. The game is also incredibly linear, there isn't any inventory management and even a simple RNG-based loot system. Noteworthy, the Steam version of the game lacks of the 2 player Duel mode included in the console versions. Despite of that, the 'Deus Vult' aura emanating from "Knights of the Temple" has a mitigating effect on the all mentioned flaws, making this title definitely worth picking up if you are into the knightly genre.

you have the chance to slay saracens and demons in the name of God almighty, what more could you demand? purchase this game, peasant! Deus Vult

Maybe it's not a masterpiece, but I like its atmosphere of great fight against evil. +: * Various environments, enemies and weapons (European soldiers, Saracens, assassins, demons, swords, scimitars, axes, maces…). * Unique atmosphere created by cutscenes. * Satisfying fighting system. * Highly customisable. It's built using Starbreeze Studios's Ogier engine, for which many tools are released and available for free. -: * It seems unfinished, especially after seeing credits and unused cutscenes and models. Also cutscenes that were used seems like a part of much big story, which can be developed fully in more sophisticated, RPG game and was chopped into pieces for this game.

Chad Paul the Crusader vs Virgin Cultists: The Deus Vult Edition I am extremely happy that this game showed up on Steam out of the blue since it is not a famous game but it is a game that many played in their childhood I think. This is a hack and slash game made the famous developer Starbreeze makers of Riddick games, Darkness, Syndicate and many other great games. Knights of the Temple is their second game after Enclave (which can also be bought on Steam). Enclave while good was a bit old school in design according to what was the standard for hack and slash games at the time so they decided to streamline things for this game and focus on the strong points of the genre. And that's exactly the end product here: game that while unremarkable is very strong in its main areas - combat, flow, and atmosphere. The story follows Paul, a rookie Templar, coming to a monastery of Belmont (probably a tribute to Castlevania) to investigate strange happenings only to find the monks and knights crazed out of their mind serving a corrupt bishop who kidnapped his love Adelle and is on a quest to open the gates of hell. From there the story follows Paul on his journey from the monastery to the Holy Land and even hell itself divided into more than 20 levels many of which are very short. The meat and potatoes of this game is the gameplay though. You get 3 weapons and a bow. Sword, axe, and mace. And during the game you find new versions of these weapons either from fallen enemies or from exploring the levels. Speaking of levels the flow of the game is very good, sometimes you explore levels, solve some light puzzles but most of the time you follow a path and just fight enemies. Which is ok since the combat is the true star of the show here. Paul will auto lock on to enemies and you unlock some combo moves and by using triggers and face buttons you use either special melee moves or divine magic given to Paul by Adelle during the game. You can upgrade these moves by finding special upgrades during the levels. Special moves are usually some crowd clearing AOEs and divine magic gives you special abilities like heal yourself or armor aura etc. The most useful on both sides are the first moves you learn, the block breaker and heal. Trust me on that one. Breaking enemy blocks is number one strategy with tougher enemies. The crunchy sound, the meaty strikes and gibs and great animation of Paul's moves all contribute to this feeling of being a knight badass. It is hard to put into words how satisfying and visceral the combat in this game is. It really carries the whole game. There are various enemies and bosses in this game starting with crazy monks who fight by flailing their hands to the demons of hellish nightmares. The graphics are obviously nothing great except Paul himself whose animations during combat are great and his attire changes in each chapter. Knights of the Temple is a super easy sell to fans of hack and slash games as well as fans of medieval combat games. It is very similar to games such as LOTR Return of the King and its spiritual sequel Demon Stone, none of which are available on Steam. If you haven't played this one as a kid - the combat is well worth it. PS: the game has a sequel made by the makers of Conan Dark Axe, both games which I would like to see on Steam in some point.

[i] Good old button-mashing hack&slash from 2004. If I am not mistaken this is from the developer of Enclave, which many people would consider a classic. Unlike Enclave, this game has no RPG elements, it's more of a generic brawler with the knight's theme, similar to games like BloodRayne. The stages are linear and there is no complex customization, just a few combos and weapons that you will unlock while playing. I still think it's worth $10, the kill animations are just so satisfying, you actually feel like you playing a knight. It seems like you can rebind keyboard controls with the gamepad, but I am not sure if there are any limitations with new models. Sadly, the normal difficulty is too easy, and the hard difficulty is almost too hard, sure hope you like blocking ;). If you grew up with games like Enclave, Rune or BloodRayne and somehow missed this, give it a try - it's not the best game by any means, but still fun to play. [/i]