While this title relies heavily on the Dungeons and Dragons name, it’s a simplified version of the paper RPG. At the start of the game you have four characters to choose from: a human fighter, halfling rouge, dwarven cleric and an elvin wizard. It’s disappointing that there are no customization options for any of the characters, other than changing their names. As you would expect, each character has unique abilities and skills and each class is very capable of dishing out some serious damage. The experience points you gain by destroying your foes are used to purchase new magic spells, weapons, armor and even some cool finishing moves to take down your enemies with a little style.

Dying (and subsequently losing your current progress) isn’t as much of a concern as it should be, since if you happen to be overtaken by the hoards of evil, you can just use one of your "raise-dead amulets" and you are magically resurrected. The amulets can be found all over game maps. There are also quite a few save points scattered throughout the dungeons, though you can save your progress at any time just by simply pressing the start button. You will find the save points are best used for activating your "warp stone," an item that opens a porthole and teleports you to the nearest item shop, where you can sell off your extra items, buy healing potions and upgrade to better armor.

Playing D&D: Heroes in single player mode offers a fairly challenging (though repetitive) experience. Luckily, the game supports a four-player cooperative mode that just plain rocks! This game becomes incredibly exciting when playing along with friends. One player can be slashing away with his sword; another shooting arrows from a distance, and the other two can be using magic spells to inflict damage on the enemies or to heal party members. Although the multiplayer co-op is a very welcome feature, it’s a crying shame that a game like Heroes has no online support or downloadable content options for that matter. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that if there’s a Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes 2 that it will include online play and content download.

The fighting system is set up nicely and will only take you only a few minutes to master. There is some customizability to the attack and spell buttons for the control tweakers out there. Once you gain experience points you will be able to add stronger melee attacks, finishing moves and magic spells to your arsenal. Even with all the attacks available to you, you will discover that you can defeat most enemies through concentrated button mashing. Thankfully, it’s not all button mashing, as some bosses are smarter than that, and they’ll require you try out some of those fancy attacks you spent your experience points on. If you just remember to save often and keep plenty of healing potions in your inventory, you won’t have too much trouble bringing down even the toughest boss.

The visuals in D&D: Heroes are a mixed bag and range from impressive to vanilla. The character models are well done and even look nice when you zoom the camera in tight for that close-up look as are the creatures for the most part. Some of the textures seem a little washed out and drab, and there are a whole lot of grays and browns, but dungeons are supposed to be dark and gloomy right? The magic spells are actually one of the highlights of the games visuals. There are some noticeable slowdowns in the frame rate during pitched battles or when there’s a lot of spellcasting going on. While the slowdowns are a bit annoying they are never so bad that they significantly hinder the game play. Did I mention the water effects in D&D: Heroes are some of the best looking I’ve ever seen in a console game?

D&D: Heroes audio is superbly done, from the clashing of swords to the grunts and cries of the dungeon creatures. The symphonic music track really adds to the atmospheric quality of the game’s. The voice-overs for the cut-scenes and non-player characters are all professionally done and worth your attention. For those of you who have surround sound systems, you will be glad to know that D&D: Heroes supports Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.

The bottom line on D&D: Heroes is that it’s a pretty good hack-and-slash RPG that never gets frustratingly difficult, though it tends to get repetitive at times and can become dull in the single player mode. The graphics are a bit better than average, although there are a few oddball framerate issues. Aside from a few small problems and no online support, D&D: Heroes offers a decent adventure for hack-and-slash RPG fans that's definitely worth a rental.