The Da Vinci Code

It's the puzzles that will make or break The Da Vinci Code, though. Fortunately there's a sweeping variety in the sort of challenges you'll be undertaking. We broke a code of unreadable symbols by picking out the length of words and figuring out which letters would fit, before having to interpret a word in semaphore to unlock a safe.

Some puzzles are much easier - like distracting guard dogs with slabs of meat - but crucially the game doesn't hold your hand or nursemaid you thorough. The symbol code was hard work, but satisfyingly so, and clues are placed believably around the environments for you to track down and make sense of.

Above: The lighting effects are particularly impressive - lots of moody shadows

But, although there's plenty of atmosphere, the game looks basic. Characters spout lines blindly into empty air during cutscenes, and the characters themselves aren't nearly as eye-pleasing as the 3D treatment given to the adventurers in Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon. It's also very dialogue heavy.

Still, we've only played unfinished code. And developer The Collective will put the whole thing through the tweaking and refining process before release. If The Da Vinci Code's outer quality can be made to match the thoughtful and intelligent puzzles underneath, it'll be just what fans of Dan Brown's fiction - all 11 squillion of them - are after.

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.