REVIEW - Deadliest Warrior The Game
- Written by Ira Yamchuk |
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For fans of the hit television show on Spike TV, Deadliest Warriors, this is your chance to hop into the arena and let your skills decide who is the Deadliest Warrior. Those of you not familiar with the show let me give you a little insight. The show begins with the introduction of two types of historical feared warriors from real life history books. For example a Spartan could battle it out against a Gladiator. The fighting style and weapons used by each warrior are shown and described along with what types of materials things are made of and the workmanship involved in making them. True replicas of the two warriors weapons are ran through a series of tests to show how accurate they are with basic tests including how deep their swords can cut through items or how many pounds of force there are in each swing. All the data from the weapon tests are entered into a simulation program that has the two warriors fight to the death to see who the Deadliest Warrior really is.
Some might think that this game, since it's an Xbox Live Arcade Title, that it's just going to be a simple button mashing, fighting game. I can assure you that this is not the case. Believe it or not it's a tactical fighting game. If you think you are just going to begin the match and start swinging your sword and you’re going to win, then you are in for a big surprise. What will most likely happen is you’re just going to wind up bleeding out on the ground waiting to start round 2. |
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You’ll get to choose from eight different fighters each with their own unique weapons and fighting styles. Those fighters are: Apache, Centurion, Knight, Ninja, Pirate, Samurai, Spartan and Viking. The strategy and hope for victory all starts even before your actual match begins. The character you’re going to pick and the weapons you are going to use are an extremely important in order to be victorious. If you like to be aggressive on offense than you are more likely to be using the Ninja rather than say a Spartan. If you are a defensive and counter attack style player then the Spartan or say the Knight is a warrior that caters to your playing style.
Just like in the great battles your warriors fought in real life, you have to pay close attention to what weapon you are using compared to your opponents. So let’s say you are a Spartan and you are facing a Ninja. The Ninja's style of fighting is quick, close combat attacks so you will want to keep him from getting to his happy place by using a medium to long range weapon and create some distance between the two of you. Its things like this that is always changing during battle that really keep you on edge during the matches which can get pretty intense.
There is decent amount of weapons to choice from but really it's how you use them in battle that can make them even more effective or ineffective which just adds more depth to the game. You can give or receive a death blow at anytime. Even if you have a full health bar but your opponent hits you in a vital organ or cuts your neck; just like it the real world you are dead and the round over. So you have to be very smart on how you approach your opponents and be patient at all times. Only strike when a opportunity presents itself. |
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When it comes to environments, there’s not too much choice of different arena. This is something I hope that they will address in the form of DLC. There are only 5 arenas currently in the game when you download it: Bamboo Sanctuary, Castle Courtyard, Greek Amphitheatre, Jungle Temple, and Fight Lab. At least there are a few different game modes. You have single player, practice, challenge, survival and global tournaments. Survival is by far my favorite. It’s your typical gauntlet style mode where you fight one opponent after the other but with a cool twist to it. Every hit removes a limb such as an arm or a leg, so you have to kill your opponents before you bleed out and die.
Graphics in the game are what you can expect from an average Xbox Live Arcade game. Now I’m not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying it's a ten dollar game and the graphics meets the price of admission. The only thing that I didn’t like was the fact that they really wanted people to feel that it's supposed to be a realistic fighter. Well then why when I swing my Spartan sword it has a bright yellow trail following it like I’m playing some arcade fighter. That just seemed out of place. I really didn’t like the poor blood effects in the game either. It reminded me of the old Mortal Kombat days back on the Super Nintendo with that same blood splatter pattern everytime. That was cool back in the 90's but not now. These things do not break the game but they could have spent just a little more time on it. I mean sure you can sever limbs, decapitate heads, and taunt your opponent's lifeless body but it’s the little things that really do give a game the edge over other game. |
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Sounds in the game are pretty cut and dry. You’ll hear everything from basic swords clashing together to the sound of thuds from a spear hitting a Spartan’s shield. As for environmental sounds, there really is not much that you will notice and sometimes none at all. They had a pretty good opportunity to add some of that stuff but like I said before I guess there is only so much you with a ten dollar game. The lack of sound effects really didn’t bother me that much. To be honest, I was just focused on trying not to get my head cut off.
The only thing I found really annoying was when playing online. When you play against Live opponents, if you where beating them they would just quit out right before they died and it's like the match never happened that is something that hopefully should be fix with a update. And the other thing I would have to mention overall there just wasn't enough content for me. Only 8 fighters and only 5 arenas ship with the game. I am sure they are going to have some DLC but a few more fighters and arena's right from the starts would have helped the replay value a lot. Overall, the game is not a bad game at all especially for a $10 price tag and I think Spike Games can hold their head high on recreating the TV show experience. For fans of the show, you should enjoy your time with it, but you will definitely wish there was more in the end. Check out the trial today on Xbox Live Arcade and see if it interests you. Now it’s time for me to go chop off some lowly Spartan’s head. |
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SUGGESTIONS |
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The only suggestion that really needs to be made is that the game gets heavily supported with DLC. More content will definitely make the game a lot more interesting. |
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Release Date
7/14/2010
Publisher
Spike Games
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OVERALL |
70 |
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GAMEPLAY |
73 |
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SOUND |
60 |
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GRAPHICS |
66 |
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REPLAY VALUE |
60 |
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