When the tale unfolds you find yourself in control of a Knight, imprisoned for protecting his people from Celenheim’s taxes and awaiting his first opportunity to escape. A sudden attack provides this chance and a sword found outside the cell means it's time to seek freedom. Progression through the game provides several characters willing to join your cause at regular points and each addition to your team results in the ability to take advantage of a new fighting style or weapon. The Halfling, for instance, can use a crossbow, as can the Huntress, but only the Huntress can use the standard bow to snipe at her enemies. Other differences are less prominent; the Knight and Halfling access the same weapons, whereas the Knight is powerful and slow, causing more damage with his weapons. The Halfling is faster and makes up for lack of strength with new ammunition for her crossbow unavailable to the Knight. In order to upgrade your measly equipment, collection of gold is the key to success. Every mission has a set amount of gold available for possession which can then be used to purchase equipment for your chosen character. New equipment gradually becomes available as you work your way into the game, allowing access to better swords, spells and armour.

Combat involves simplistic hacking and slashing your way through your opponents combined with the use of a 3 hit combo, the third of which proves substantially deadlier as your weapons increase in power. This can be coupled with a shield which is used to block the majority of attacks provided your character is facing in the right direction. Staffs, Crossbows and Bows provide a method of ranged attack with the bow in particular allowing you to snipe. A ranged attack displays a targeting reticule in the form of a green circle surrounding your enemy. This gradually turns red as you stay locked on indicating the tendency for shots at this point to cause more damage. Sniping allows damage to be allocated more accurately with body parts clearly marked for target once zoomed in on.

Controls are quite straight forward and simple to grasp. The left stick provides the forwards/backwards and strafing motions; a simple click also causes the player to duck. The right stick is used to aim and change direction and a click will allow the character to jump. On the shoulder buttons, the right button performs an attack with a weapon and the left button allows a shield to be held up, reloading of bows and crossbows as well as zooming functions. Most players should feel at home with these controls based on what seems to be a standard template for console FPS. This is fortunate as they cannot be customized, the only options present being to invert the aim of the right stick and switch vibration on or off.

Players will immediately notice the lack of a lock on system whilst fighting in close combat. Fortunately it isn’t necessary; the camera follows the on screen character really well, switching seamlessly between first and third person views as necessary by panning in and turning the character transparent. This assists combat greatly, as there will be many occasions when you may find yourself backed against a wall fighting for your life. It also proves useful for exploration and creeping around to find that appropriate sniping position.

One of the combat system's failures is that close combat weapons cannot be aimed up or down, making combat at different elevations difficult. Trying to fight someone below you, for instance, can sometimes be a pain. Having said that, I found that this rarely proved to be frustrating and is partly compensated for by the large area covered in weapon swings as well as the area affect for the last strike of the combo.

Enclave has 14 missions for the Light side and 13 for the Dark side, each with 3 sub games in the form of survival challenges. The actual levels themselves are quite short and compact in size with little chance to deviate from the route to your objective, but prove lengthy in their negotiation. Full on attacks against the enemy aren’t always fruitful so an amount of tact is involved in finding the best ways to subdue your opponents. This applies even more so to the later levels which may take several attempts to complete.

Yes, that’s right, several attempts. Enclave only saves upon level completion without any opportunity to take a break in between. Almost expectedly, there are the instant deaths which some levels present for the careless or unsuspecting gamer as if to enhance frustration. Yes, you too can indeed die after spending a couple of hours carefully creeping around a level only to have a trap spring on you or get lynched by snipers. But the main disadvantage of this is that you can’t save a game mid-level and walk away from it to take a break. The manual makes a mention of checkpoints; however, after playing through the whole game I found only one and that didn’t appear function properly. Some players may find that this ups the difficulty level of the game substantially, to the extent that they become put off the game. A mid-level save-point could have at least been instigated to help counter this.

Graphically the game is well accomplished; the textures on the levels are very detailed, clear and crisp. The buildings surrounding the player are well designed and suit the medieval setting that the game is conveying. It is tempting to just stand there looking around your surroundings; the skies for instance, are superb with the sun shining through the passing cloud. One of my favourite features has to be on one of the few levels where you grasp a torch and use it to light your way around dark tunnels, this really shows off the real-time shadowing and it's a shame this aspect doesn’t feature more frequently. The game makes superb use of lighting, with the main light sources being torches and candles which create some very moody levels.

Water surfaces are one of the best I have seen in any game, with the surroundings reflected on the surface of the water, whilst at the same time allowing you to see to the bottom. However, several of the games smaller flaws can be witnessed here in the graphics engine. The water physics doesn’t allow for splashes or ripples and for some fowl reason, fire arrows or fire spells will not light up areas in the same way as the torch if at all.

Characters are also well detailed, armour changes in appearance as it’s upgraded with reflections and shiny surfaces represented on metallic armour (and throughout on metal surfaces). Most if not all the game's models have decent animations and it’s possible to clearly see the inventory items that each character has equipped. This is partly due to the fact that each side encounters playable models from the other side, but even those enemies that can’t be used look impressive.

The clipping system is slightly flawed; those explorers amongst us may find they actually get stuck in a surface. This only occurred to me twice during the game, to the extent I had to reset the level; it is extremely frustrating. It’s also possible for a couple of your arrows to seemingly pass straight through your opponent, probably a bonus in real life but not in the game when it refuses to cause damage. Again, these occurrences are few and far between. Slowdown also rears it ugly head occasionally, sometimes for no apparent reason. Although the impact on gameplay was little if at all, there were a couple of points where the game irritatingly staggered suddenly. If Starbreeze are to focus on impressive graphics, this kind of issue should be taken into better consideration in future.

Sound wise, the game features Dolby Digital 5.1 giving full 3D, working well alongside neat little effects such as being able to hear characters talking in adjacent rooms, the sound of monsters grunting close by and ambient sound effects such as lava flows. Often, the sound of a clap of thunder or laughter coming seemingly from nowhere will intentionally cause your concentration to falter as you stalk an enemy. The music consists of dynamic orchestral tracks that alter accordingly as you enter battle. Sounding like a cross between the soundtrack of the Gladiator and Conan films, it really lends itself to the whole atmosphere of the game. It’s also worth mentioning that the game uses narrated FMV cut scenes to convey the storyline, these are both well scripted and "acted".

As for replay value, the Dark campaign requires unlocking and for good reason too as it takes into account that the player has experienced the Light side. All missions can be replayed once passed and there are the two survival missions to be unlocked for each side, though these can become repetitive quickly. Enclave’s combat system would have been ideal for quick bouts on a split screen and could have formed a fast paced multiplayer game; the wide range of characters available, 12 in all with 4 to be unlocked, only reinforces this point. Definitely a missed opportunity and certainly my biggest disappointment, as the game could really have stood out with such a feature.

To sum up, Enclave has its flaws but these shouldn’t detract from an enjoyable atmospheric action adventure, with a rich storyline that is simple to pick up and play. Difficult in parts and some may want to rent first. Either rental or purchase, it's definitely worth a look at.