Night Watch is a Russian movie involving the supernatural, adapted from the book with the same title. Although the film was a huge hit in Russia, breaking all box office records there, it remains relatively obscure in the United States, even though it was recently released on DVD. It might have what many would regard as a sort of cult following here. But, a hit is a hit, right? So, of course a videogame needs to be made out of it. You would think that a game based off a supernatural action movie would end up as some kind of shooter, not a turn-based tactical strategy game. Yet, here it is. Points should be given to the developer for defying convention, but that's about it.

The underlying premise is that there is a long-standing but uneasy truce between the forces of Light and Darkness, which prevented them from completely annihilating each other centuries ago. To preserve the balance, regulatory police forces were established. The Night Watch, composed of those from the Light, track of the creatures from the Dark. At the same time, the Day Watch does the reverse. They go about their business outside the perception of mortals, although special beings known as "Others" tend to crop up, who then must choose between the Light or Dark. Neither side is allowed to forcibly coerce a newfound Other to their side, but little things like rules and treaties never stop people from trying. Although the game's premise is the same as the movie's, and it even brings in main characters to play, it does not follow the same plot. Instead, it has its own original story based in the "Watch" world, which works to its benefit, since you don't actually need to know anything about the book or the movie to get a feel for what's going on. However, if you really want more background info, you could either rent the DVD or watch the whole thing for free in a two and a half minute burst.

Night Watch the game follows a guy named Stas, who starts off on a rooftop aiming a sniper rifle at a young girl. The girl happens to be a newly discovered Other and initiate to the Light. It turns out Stas is too, but members from the Dark were trying to corrupt him. From there, Stas joins the Night Watch and dives into the world of vampires, werewolves and witches while uncovering a sinister plan which upsets the balance. It's not exactly the most original plot in the world, and the game's presentation often makes the story pretty confusing, but we got the general idea of what was going on. While the game is primarily a tactical game with some role playing elements, it actually falls short of being good at either one.

The player gets to choose from three different classes. The shape-shifter allows a character to change form and makes for the main melee combatant, with high damage and constitution. The enchanter specializes in using items which are imbued with magical properties. For example, an apple can become a healing potion and a fluorescent light bulb becomes a sword, etc. They also cast spells which weaken enemies. The mage is great for long-range offense, but can't do much when forced to go toe-to-toe. Each class has about 20 spells and abilities, unlocked each time a character gains a new level, although most of them seem pretty useless. A character's proficiency with a particular spell or ability grows with use, but there doesn't seem to be a point to developing more than just a small handful of them.

You can have up to four members in your party, but the game ends up dictating who you end up with. You can't pick for yourself, which turned out to not matter, since there are only three classes. All characters are allowed to walk freely in the world until they spot danger, at which time the game changes over to turn-based mode. In combat, every little thing burns up action points, but even when you level your characters up, they never really seem to get much more of them. At most, you'll be limited to throwing up to three punches per character before having to press the "End Turn" button to see what your foes will do. Movement uses up a ton of AP, so many players will be forced to stick primarily to ranged attacks until the enemy manages to move within melee distance. One really annoying problem we came across was that your party constantly follows each other around, but they don't move at the same speed. So, if you decide to send the group to a location and your fastest member spots a foe while everyone else is twenty paces behind, the game still switches to turn-based mode, and the player is forced to waste AP's so that their close-range characters can enter the fray. The pathfinding isn't bad, but it's not great, either. It's competent most of the time, then seems to have trouble figuring out a straight line. Not to mention, characters don't exactly end up where you point them. They have a tendency to go to the general vicinity and stop.

There is no difficulty setting for Night Watch, and although some foes might have more hit points than others, none are exceptionally smart. Players can get by with using the same tactics over and over again throughout the entire game. What sets Night Watch apart from other tactical games is the ability to enter the Gloom, which is a parallel dimension that only Others may go into. When in the Gloom, characters are invisible to those who remain in the main world, and cannot be attacked by anyone outside of the Gloom. It also boosts the potency of spells at the cost of constantly draining spell points. However, even though it's supposed to change up the strategy of gameplay, it does the opposite. Players can get by quite easily by going into the Gloom early, launching a volley of powerful spells before their foes can react, then repeating this strategy throughout the entire game.

The game's environment mainly centers around urban areas like abandoned subway stations, parks, and streets. However, the graphics are pretty poor. The colors are dull and drab. Nothing really jumps out or sticks in memory. We got a little bored looking at this game, and its simplistic, repetitive gameplay didn't help.

Night Watch might be some fun in the beginning, when you get into your early skirmishes, but things start to fizzle really fast. Gameplay becomes automatic. There is a ton of dialogue in the game, which is great for the convoluted story, but significantly slows down the pace of the game. That's saying a lot for a turn-based game! The voice acting and dialogue is generally ok, although some lines are a bit hokey. While Night Watch isn't exactly a terrible game, it's not compelling enough to keep many players engaged.