Brave: The Search For Spirit Dancer, Sony Playstation

These days, Native Americans get to do little else than run casinos, drink themselves into oblivion, and allow a single tear to roll down their cheek as they contemplate the White Man's ravaging of their ancestral homeland. But there was a time when the life of an Amerindian tribesman was packed with adventure as they roamed their rugged and beautiful country. Brave transports you back to this magical age via the wizardry of your PlayStation 2. The game allows you to step into the moccasins of the generically named Brave, whose village has been brought into jeopardy by the attack of an evil spirit known as Wendigo. With his friends and family killed or turned into zombies by this malevolent force, Brave escapes his burning village as he sets out on the titular search for Spirit Dancer, a powerful shaman and the only one who can save his people. The game is published by none other than Sony Europe, and developed by VIS Entertainment, a software house that also worked on the Rockstar-badged State of Emergency and Earthworm Jim 3D. As you'd expect from a first-party branded game, it has a nicely polished look. The graphics are pretty and stylised, and take you through a variety of interactive and suitably North American 3D environments, from forests of majestic giant trees and grand, expansive deserts, to frosty tundra and fast-flowing, gelid rivers. You'll even take to the skies and visit the spirit world too. As an indigenous tribesman, Brave has access to a range of traditional weaponry, not only conventional weapons like the longbow and tomahawk, but a range of ancestral magic too. He can run, jump, swim, climb, canoe and ride. But as his journey continues, spirit guides will introduce him to advanced shamanic techniques, possessing animals where necessary to address the limitations of his human frame, becoming anything from the smallest rabbit to the fiercest bear. Steeped in the lore and mythology of this romantic lost world, Brave is an exciting new IP and is exclusive to PS2.

Buy Brave: The Search For Spirit Dancer for 12.99 GBP

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