Parent's Guide: The Cursed Crusade - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

The Cursed Crusade is set during the 13th Century, and follows the tale of Denz De Bayle, a noble knight, seeking to learn the truth about what's happened to his father, who went missing on the last crusade, and Esteban Noviembre, a Spanish thief, who gets caught up in the crusades. A third person, hack and slash adventure, the Cursed Crusade is heavily combat based, with each level seeing you come up against dozens of enemies, as you defend cities, storm castles, and generally take part in medieval warfare. The twist here is that these two men both harbour "the curse", and can enter a hellish version of reality at the press of a button, granting them super powers, and the ability to see things that others can't.

The game's certainly easy enough to pick up to begin with - should you feel that way inclined, you can simply mash a button throughout the game, and you'll likely not have too many problems (at least to begin with) especially when playing on the easy difficulty, while longer, more elaborate combinations of button presses let you perform more elaborate moves. It's not all combat, either, as there are several collectables hidden throughout each level, in the form of coffers, crucifixes, and spirits, the latter two of which can only be found when using the curse.

There's an interesting, if somewhat confusing to follow story tying everything together here, but sadly, around halfway through, the game gets very hard. Incredibly hard. Although the game can be played in co-op, after the halfway point, the game starts splitting you up at increasingly frequent moments, making it tricky to play in a team with someone who isn't quite so good, as they'll be forced to fend for themselves, and can't rely on you to come running. At the same time as it starts splitting you up more regularly, it also starts throwing larger, more annoying enemies at you, and practically removes all the checkpoints from the level, meaning a single death is enough to see you being forced to restart.

Bearing its "100% uncut" symbol on the box with pride, the Cursed Crusade possibly isn't as violent as you may imagine, but it's still an exercise in unnecessary violence. While it's arguably not as bloody as the logo might expect (see the screenshots for more), limbs and heads do roll, as decapitations and dismemberments are commonplace, especially as your characters get stronger. Decapitations are accompanied by awful gurgling noises as your opponents effectively drown, while some of the more violent moves see you embedding your sword in the side of someone's neck, then using your other one to bash it through, taking their head clean off. It's certainly not pretty.

While the game's high on violence, there's no sex involved, and little swearing. The game's characters make reference to the "p*ss soaked rags" which are used to prevent their siege weapons from catching fire, and there's a sword called the "b*stard sword", but it's surprisingly light on the language. What it is heavy on, though, is demonic imagery - when you enter the curse, the characters all grow goats horns, and basically look like the devil incarnate, whilst pentagrams also make an appearance.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Xbox 360