Somewhat randomly, I won Lichdom: Battlemage in a competition on Gamespot show The Lobby last week. Since installing it I discovered my PC specs aren't good enough (first game I've tried where this has been the case!) but I can play with no frame drops at 1600x900 with every setting at very low. The game still looks surprisingly good although the fire and ice effects take a big hit. I've spent an hour with it so far (I should note I played before yesterday's 4gb patch, which I imagine adds rather a lot).

Lichdom: Battlemage is a first person magic casting game. A large dark cavern is your setting for the beginning of the game. You are given no setup or context, though I know that will be coming in future updates. With little option but to travel onwards you are soon attacked by a group of figures.

Fighting in Lichdom: Battlemage is tremendous fun and seemingly the emphasis of the game at this time. You have control of fire and ice at the start and can switch between the two at any time. There is no mana restricting you; the animation is the only delay preventing you from continuos casting. You can shoot a ball or charge for a chance to freeze/ignite, freeze time momentarily as you move a short distance in a direction, conjure a shield which reduces damage and summon a ghostly bird to show you which direction you need to go. Duel casting creates an area of effect spell that rains down fire or ice on any enemy underneath. Numbers shoot off the enemy as spells hit showing damage with the occasional critical shot.

The process of fighting an enemy is smooth and makes you feel powerful. Freezing an enemy before raining down hellish flames from above, dodging a bolt at the last second with your quick movement and time stopping showing you just how close it was to hitting you. It all looks great with fantastic effects on every spell, even on this low graphic setting.

So far I've encountered three enemy types: a standard melee fighter, a melee fighter with a magical shield that you need to hit several times to disperse before you can damage the enemy and an archer, shooting bolts of magic at you. I don't know if there are any more enemies at the point but I hope there are. Though the fighting was thrilling it was a bit repetitive facing the same model each time.

The graphics are very impressive. I can't talk about them too much as I played with all settings on very low, but even then it still looks great. The effects from your spells are a highlight, though sometimes flames were reduces to textured rectangles on my machine. The environment and enemies looked good.

There is an upgrading system in place for your magic. The menu brings up 'equip', suggesting there will be more magical power types to acquire, 'crafting' and 'synthesis'. By defeating enemies and destroying orange globes that cling to the walls of the cavern you are sometimes given items. These have somewhat cryptic names at the moment. Some of the clearer named ones include 'Persistent Aoe Pattern of Impact' and 'Persistent targeted pattern' but you can equip them to your magic to change the stats a little.

You encounter hints of narrative in the first hour. Orbs containing ghostly apparitions of past events with two characters talking about their quest are scattered in the cavern. This area is still rough and one of the character's cape was constantly clipping and transforming into humerous shapes. I also fell into a trap set by a character who was displeased to see me and let me go.

I've not yet got a sense of what exactly Lichdom: Battlemage is. The first hour was quite lonely; only enemies, the two ghostly figures and the captor are in the cavern with you. The fighting is sublime, miles ahead of any other first person magic casting I've played. I couldn't help but think in this hour that I wished Skyrim's magic was handled in this way. It'll be interesting to see whether the game is a full blown magic based RPG or more of an arena based battling game.

Lichdom: Battlemage is massively impressive given it's early status, currently in pre-alpha. It's fun, atmospheric and the fighting makes you feel powerful. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys first person and role-playing games. I look forward to playing more and seeing what this game becomes.