You know the drill when it comes to dungeon crawling RPGs. Endless hack n' slash action punctuated by fetch/carry quests and trips to the cellar in order to kill 50 giant rats. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of such RPGs, but sometimes I'd like the gameplay to be as deep as the leveling and loot systems. Luckily, Venetica has us covered, promising complex combat and hundreds of varying quests.

"Scarlett can learn lots of new combo moves as well as many other combat tactics," explains creative director Jan Klose. "Although combat is fast-paced and happens in realtime, and although an unskilled player could technically defeat almost any opponent (when having reached a reasonable level), killing an enemy can be very hard if the player does not learn to master special fighting tactics, such as dodging, good timing, the use of the right skills at the right time, and combos.

"It is also important to consider which weapon to use for an enemy, as certain enemies can be defeated much better if you have the right tool in your hand. Even the type of armor you are wearing will be more or less appropriate depending on your enemy.

"... There are only very few quests that go 'Bring me 500 wolf skins,' as we're going to leave that field to World of Warcraft ... All the Venetica quests are tightly woven into the story, and some of them pose difficult moral questions. All in all I would say that the quests are extremely varied with some really unusual tasks to fulfill."

Sounds good to me.