The combat system has been shown off in in-game footage, with Peter Molyneux demonstrating it for a select group of gaming journalists. The combat system in the previous system was successful and received a lot of the praise that was heaped on the original game. The system has now been changed in a way that makes it easier to fight without needing to be a specialist in first person fighting. This may annoy purists, but for those of us who find aiming with a 360 controller very difficult, this could remove the annoyance factor that may normally force someone like me away from the game.

The use of Co-operative play broadens the potential for the game far beyond the first game, allowing the interactions to blur the line between reality and the in-game experience. The ability to play co-op on a single console is hugely exciting for those people who prefer to play co-op with people who are physically near them, rather than just someone on the other end of Xbox Live. However, it is likely to a spur on a large amount of arguments about whose Albion you play in and who gets to be leader and who gets to be henchman.

The added ability to transfer your gold and experience to different versions of Albion is also extremely praiseworthy, as it allows the different players to decide where and when they want to play co-op without the arduous process of creating and playing a brand new character. It seems to be a worthy adversary for some of the MMO’s, without the instanced towns, but with better graphics.

The positive side is that with the game being released on Xbox 360, there is no installation process, and you don’t have to run around trying to sort out your pc’s graphics and processing power to handle the game’s beautiful graphics. The negative side is that you don’t get to choose what you play the game on. Allowing us the option would have been wonderful, but unfortunately I doubt that one reviewer’s opinion is likely to change Peter Molyneux’s & Lionhead’s entire release strategy.

However, even given all the bitching I just did about the game, I am still looking forward to this release, although I hope that it doesn’t suffer from the same case of over-hype that Halo 3 came down with last year, although pardon me for thinking that may be unlikely.