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> Results: The Chosen: Well of Souls
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The ESRB Says
Fantasy Violence: GamerDad saw blood spatter everywhere as he dispatched enemies. Mild Suggestive Themes: Surprising people with automatic weapons causes them to use swear words - this game is no exception. This game is yet another small-shop Eastern European action-RPG, this time clearly in the Diablo lineage, but with a twist - it is set in 19th century Europe and features pistols and shotguns alongside the bow and staff in an age of torches and candles and hulking mechanical devices. It is a 3rd person isometric perspective game with left-click attacks and right-click magic spells, a limited skill tree and loads of monsters to kill. There is plenty to criticize about this game, but I want to reinforce that is important to look at this as a budget release. Taking that perspective as a basis for your assumptions will put you into the correct mindset - limited game, fun gameplay, nothing revolutionary. And I find that this game succeeds along those lines in pretty much the same way as last year's Space Hack (not surprising since it is based on the same engine). The core gameplay is a blast - loads of monsters to kill, fun and effective spells and weapons, and you can see your effectiveness increasing as you increase in level. Unfortunately the game is laden with problems that get in the way of your fun. The story is fairly cliched and dialogs that accompany it are stilted and boring to read - if you choose to read them at all. But they are better than the voiced dialogue that is just awful - the first time I heard the hero I thought someone was doing a bad impersonation of Peter Lorre. They might not have come that often ... but I dreaded them anyway. I normally complain about RPG's that have insufficient 'gold sinks', making you too rich for your own good early on in the game. This is the opposite - I played as Frater and found myself selling junk constantly and bashing every crate for the measly 21 gold so I could get the next level spellbook. But because the core game was fun, I dealt with it - it is a very linear game filled with some nice mindless hack-n-slash fun.  
The Kid Factor for Space Hack said that the core game would have been acceptable for kids 10+ if only for the abundance of strong language. The Chosen has only occasional mild language and is otherwise pretty much full of the same type of content found in Space Hack - only now it is in a 19th century setting full of monsters. The game is presented in such a light and fantastic setting as to greatly minimize the violence and minor amounts of blood. Like most games in this genre, the action is quick and intense, but the third-person isometric perspective decouples the player from becoming too immersed in the character. The game is T-rated but I think that a 10-year old is unlikely to have any issue with this game and therefore recommend a 10+ GamerDad Age Seal. My only caveat is that if your child is extremely blood-sensitive there is a small amount of blood shown when humanoid enemies are destroyed - but it really is minor and kept at a distance.
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