Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat Review: Fun for Five Minutes

Posted by on 8/23/12 • Categorized as Gaming,Reviews

Sometimes a boatload of content isn’t enough.

With six episodes of the hit-show and two games encompassing two discs, Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat has plenty of things to do; they just don’t entertain much.

Those who played Deadliest Warriors: Legends when it was originally released will find that game is the exactly the same as it was before. While you get to play as legendary warriors such as William Wallace and Shaka Zulu, the uneven combat feels more like a nod to Mortal Kombat than a unique original game. The character intros, character models, voice-overs and music all start off as cool, but end up drying up before the root of intrigue ever gets firmly planted.

There is another strategy mode, Generals, which offers something different than the brutal straight-ahead fighting that the main game offers, but just like most of the meat and potatoes the game has to offer, this gets stale after a play or two. The end result is a passable first game that is more derivative than special.

The second game on the disc, Ancient Combat, plays eerily similar to the first game, but with prettier graphics. The same run-of-the-mill fighting action sadly remains. However, it must be said that there is a level of fun that comes with the brutal killings in the game. The sword strikes, weapon throws, arrow shots, all look good and don’t get old. The only problem is they require zero skill to pull off and are completely random. Had there been more polish on the gameplay front, the game could have found a niche as a uniquely fiendish fighter. Instead, it’s a title that will forever be relegated to the bargain bin.

Playing this game with friends for an hour or so and following up with a few episodes of the show on the second disc is the only way to get any satisfaction out of this collection. The games, while having a few sparse moments of intrigue, don’t add much to the fighting game formula. With the first few seasons of the show now available on Netflix, this collection is already obsolete.

Patrick Hickey Jr.

Patrick Hickey Jr. is the Founder, Editor-in-Chief, Master Jedi and Grand Pooh-bah of ReviewFix.com. He is currently a Journalism and English Professor at Kingsborough Community College and a Weekend News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media. He also teaches Multimedia Journalism at Brooklyn College and has had articles and photos published in The New York Times, The New York Daily News and The Syracuse Post Standard. Love him. Read him.

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