From Soldak Entertainment, creators of Depths of Peril, comes Kivi's Underworld, a hack'n'slash game that threatens poor mice out there everywhere. Kivi's Underworld also shows that not having to worry about dice rolls, armor class and mega items is sometimes a good thing, and certainly relaxing.

Hack'n'slash games don't generally put too much accent on story, and Kivi's Underworld is no exception. Everything starts with Kivi's expedition opening a path for Dark Elves to come through and destroy everything. Kivi manages to survive and tries to warn everybody about the upcoming danger, but his warnings fall on deaf ears. Seeing as nobody seems to listen to him, Kivi sets upon enlisting the aid of others and solving the Dark Elf problem once and for all.

This sets the stage for the 30 missions of the game, each having its very own narrated introduction. The missions don't take too long to complete, and the whole game can be finished in a single day if you dedicate enough time to it. Beside the mandatory main objective, there are also secondary objectives that range from killing a number of enemies of a specific type, to finding secrets or loot.

The aid I was mentioning earlier comes in the form of 20 allied heroes, each with his or her special abilities. They can either be found in missions or unlocked when you have attained a high enough score. A single play through is probably not enough to unlock all the characters, but after you've finished the game once, you are told in what mission each character can be found. Even with that information, be prepared to search every wall thoroughly, because Kivi's Underworld has some of the trickiest secret areas to uncover.

The high number of playable heroes might scare off casual players, but Kivi's Underworld is very simple to play, no matter the hero. An active skill, used when right clicking, and a passive ability that's always on, are all the skills that you'll have to manage during the game; besides walking and attacking, of course. Playable characters include warriors, blade masters, barbarians, mages, warlocks, priests and rogues. As I played through the game I found the blade master to be the easiest to use, having both an AOE skill as well as a fast attack. Mages are damaging enough but most suffer from the lack of AOE, and when 10 monsters attack you from all directions, you'll have a hard time killing them one by one.

Death isn't as big a deal in Kivi's Underworld as it is in other games, since you usually have 2 or 3 lives per level. Of course, dying will subtract a big chunk of your score at the end of the level, and that's not such a good thing. You might be wondering why finishing a level with a high score is so important. First of all, you have no XP in Kivi's Underworld. Yes, that's right, you will receive no experience points as the game progresses, so that leads us to the next logical question. How do I improve my character? The high score comes into play here, and depending on your score, you will receive a trophy at the end of each level, trophies that add skill points to your character. The bronze trophy is the easiest to obtain and offers a measly skill point, the silver one offers two points, whereas the gold trophy offers three of the so-important points.

Everything you do during a mission adds to your total score, even obtaining first blood, for example. Collecting different types of gems, getting a killing spree or even smashing a lot of crates in a short period of time will reward you with a higher score. You can get up to 50% more score if you don't die during a mission, kill all the monsters and find all the secrets. Getting a gold trophy in every mission guarantees that your characters will have no trouble what so ever in completing the missions.