Hack, slash, kill. Repeat as necessary.

“Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II” is both ridiculously easy and very short. Despite these flaws, it’s still an enjoyable killing experience while it lasts and is certainly worth renting.

“Dark Alliance II” begins with the player needing to fight his or her way to Baldur’s Gate through a goblin clan that has attacked a merchant, but it’s never really clear why — and most of the story doesn’t make sense if you haven’t recently played the original “Dark Alliance.”

The story is not a big part of the experience — although incomprehensible for most people, it doesn’t detract from the game.

“Dark Alliance II” is about only one thing — “Gauntlet” style hack-and-slash action. As soon as the opening story ends, the player is tossed into the world and immediately begins to wade through hordes of enemies on various missions for the next 10 hours.

The game also supports two-player cooperative play, a great feature that makes the game even more similar to the original “Gauntlet” experience.

There are five characters to chose from. Each one plays quite a bit differently, which adds to the replay value.

The characters are not very balanced, however, and by the end of the game, those with a good-ranged attack (dwarven rogue, dark elf monk, moon elf necromancer) seem to be significantly better than the melee characters (human cleric, human barbarian), because they almost never get hit.

The game is not very difficult, however, so this shouldn’t keep players from using any character they want.

In fact, not very difficult is an understatement.

Even on the hardest setting, the second half of the game consists mostly of hitting the special attack button over and over, waiting for the enemies to die. This is still mildly entertaining, because your character continues to get more and more powerful.

The game does seem to end at the perfect moment, just before laying waste to thousands starts getting old.

There are some role-playing elements incorporated into “Dark Alliance II,” but they seem somewhat lacking. The characters gain levels, and there are many different equipment upgrades you can collect.

But the game is not at all true to the Dungeons & Dragons rules it is supposedly based on, which may turn off some role-playing purists. For example, monks can wear plate armor. If that bothers you, this game may annoy you. If you have no idea what that means, it probably will not significantly affect your gameplay experience.

Graphically, the game looks the same as the original “Dark Alliance,” which was excellent when it was released two years ago, but looks slightly less impressive now. The graphics are certainly adequate and the three-quarters isometric view nearly eliminates camera problems.

The game is over in a short 10 hours; however, beating it does unlock a “secret” character and a new “Extreme” difficulty mode. This, combined with the different play styles of the main characters, is enough to provide ample motivation to replay the game.

Fans of “Gauntlet” or the original “Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance” will certainly enjoy this game. Anyone who is a fan of hack-and-slash style games and has a few hours to kill should enjoy it, although everything the game has to offer can probably be seen during a rental.