Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle

Technology having CONDEMNED it to the gaming dustbin, there aren't many point-and-click adventures these days. This hasn't deterred indie developer Shadow Tor though, who have come up with Barrow Hill, a sort of West Country-version of Call Of Cthulhu mixed with bits of Broken Sword. The game kicks off on the autumn equinox, when after a short car ride, you're left in the eerily quiet Barrow Hill, where the excavation of a mysterious stone monument has resulted in the strange disappearance of the archaeologists involved.

An old-style adventure interface powers things along, with mouse commands used to move around and examine the rendered landscape. Barrow Hill makes the adventure experience as trouble-free as possible; if an inventory item is ever required you're alerted, and there's hardly ever a moment when you're unsure as to what you should be doing.

Puzzles present a challenge without being overwhelming, and there's also 'archaeological elements' to spice things up a bit, which most of the time means you using a metaldetector to hunt out various items.

However, Barrow Hill adds nothing new to the genre and the game world itself isn't very large. Factor in the heavy levels of backtracking, and exploration quickly becomes tedious and boring. Still, there are some nice touches and if you can overlook its rather by-the-numbers approach, then Barrow Hill might well be worth exploring.