It seemed such a good idea when the game was first announced: an MMORPG where one player will have the opportunity to rule an entire world as the unquestioned champion and be given special powers to decimate all rivals.

Gradually more info was released that sounded equally tasty. The London Symphony Orchestra had been hired to write a stirring soundtrack, there would be a unique Person v Person battle system where whole guilds would fight each other and relics of incredible power could be discovered on the map. You'd be able to ride and fight on exotic beasts, join others to siege castles and embark on varied and exciting quests.

It all sounds very exciting. The classy fold-out box cover shows dramatic pictures of the fantastical land of Chantra where the action will take place, but disturbingly there only seems to be three race choices - Humans, Orcs and Moon Elves.

Your apprehension grows when you realise there are only eight classes in total to choose from (three each for Humans and Orcs and only two for the entirely female Moon Elves). Faces and hair styles can be altered when you create your avatar but that's all. We opted to be a Knight and began the game in a relatively barren fortress that could have come from any number of medieval-style games.

It's soon clear that progress is made by collaring an important figure and demanding a quest. These mostly involve killing 'x' number of monsters or collecting items and returning to your start point, for which you're rewarded with money, health or mana (for spells). As this is based on a Korean model MMO, this means spending ages repeating this process until you have enough money to buy lots of potions, as after level 6 you can be attacked by other players.

By this time you've used up most of your money on health potions to defeat the other monsters, so you get killed frequently and have to start again to earn the money to buy some half-decent equipment. It wouldn't be so bad if the graphics weren't so outdated and unoriginal - plus it's hard to take seriously a 'monster' that looks like a square blob of jelly.

Manoeuvring round the map is difficult too as movement operates on a combination of left-clicking the mouse, using the WASD keys and the four arrow keys to head in the right direction. Pathfinding is a major problem, as even the smallest stone has to be angled round and there's no jump capability.

As for the ultimate carrot - the chance to become the all-powerful ArchLord - this can only happen after you've first reached a high enough level to join a guild, then to be nominated as their 'champion' and to fight it out with five other guilds in a special arena. If you do by some miracle win, then you only keep the crown, the flying dragon and your new destructive powers for three weeks.

Then I guess it's back to the jelly squares...

After such a considerably hyped build-up, ArchLord is a regal disappointment with below-par graphics, laborious and uninspiring quests, ungainly movement controls and even the much-vaunted combat a dispiriting grind-fest.