Cursed Mountain casts you in the role of Scottish climber Eric Simm­ons, on a quest to save your little brother Frank who’s gone missing in deepest Tibet.

This unique third-person adventure finds you amidst ruined mountain villages, fending off evil spirits with a mystical pickaxe and the power of your ‘inner eye’.

Steeped in Tibetan Buddhist mythology, packed with detail, and full of colourful background information and unconventional characters, the story is easily the game’s high point. Told with a combination of written clues and surreal, highly stylised cut scenes, it might keep you hooked long enough to overlook some of the more uncomfortable aspects of the game play.

The Wii motion sensors are put to work in the form of gesture-based finishing moves, which although fairly simple in principle don’t come off very reliably and can quickly lead to frustration.

If this were the only control problem it could be overlooked; unfortunately, even just looking around isn’t as simple as it should be, especially given the unique nature of the Wiimote and nunchuck combo. This is a major inconvenience when your enemies’ primary tactic is to vanish and reappear behind you.

The pace of the game could charitably be described as considered. Even when he’s running, it feels as though Eric is in no great hurry to actually find his brother, a problem compounded by the frequent backtracking and undirected exploration of the fairly small and linear environments. These aspects of the game play, along with the stilted, non-interactive nature of the non-player characters you meet on your travels, give Cursed Mount­ain a somewhat dated feel.

But if you’re tired of mindless zombie-mashing and fancy something with a little more depth to it, the story is engaging enough to warrant the uphill struggle.