Spike Games first game has finally been released on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN. Of course I am talking about Deadliest Warrior the game based on the hit American television show of the same title. On the television show every week two different warriors from history enter into simulated battle and then at the end of each show the battle is re-enacted. The game features the original eight warriors from season one. You can choose from the Spartan, Viking, Apache, Ninja, Pirate, Knight, Centurion, or Samurai. If you are thinking this doesn’t seem like a lot to choose from don’t worry because Spike has indicated they intend to release more fighters in the form of downloadable content. I myself as well as others I have spoken to are hoping to see the Gladiator, M?ori, Shaolin Monk and maybe some of the modern soldiers featured on the show like the IRA or Spetsnaz.

The game play in Deadliest Warrior is not only fast but absolutely brutal. The single player mode contains an arcade mode where you fight your way through all the games fighters including a mirror of yourself. There is also a practice mode where you can hone your skills and combos. And the last single player mode is challenge mode, which is not unlocked until you have completed arcade mode with every single fighter. In challenge mode there is four game types to choose from. Survival, which is a type of horde mode where you battle against never ending waves of unforgiving fighters. Then there is Slice which is a like a regular match except every hit you land will cause your opponents limbs to go flying. After that there is a hybrid of the two modes called Survival Slice which is fairly self explanatory. Finally there is the pointless Target mini game where you are forced to hack down butchered pig carcasses before a thirty second timer runs out.

On the multiplayer side of things you can choose from either ranked or unranked player matches where you can earn battle rating points which determine your place on the online leaderboards. There is also a Tournament mode that isn’t quite set up the way I had expected with eight people playing and trying to get to the finals. In stead you start off in a first round match and if you are successful you move on to the semi-finals where you fight a random person who has also won a first round match at some other point in time. So basically to win a online tournament you are required to win three matches in a row. There is also a local battle option so when your drinking buddies come over you can put away your decorative samurai swords and battle it out in a much safer way.

The graphics in The Deadliest Warrior are surprisingly quite good and could best be compared to something like Mortal Kombat: Deception. When fighters are decapitated or their limbs are severed it may not look very realistic or behave the way one might expect but it still looks really cool. There are certain inconsistencies in the game though, for example if you are hit with an enemy projectile it will remain sticking out of your body but sometimes it will disappear in the middle of the fight. Also during some of the finishing maneuvers the frame rate can drop and at times specifically during the Spartans finisher when he goes to stab the enemy his sword appears to just graze their shoulder instead of penetrating into the neck.

The sound of the game is terrible and sounds like it was recorded through an Xbox headset microphone. The soundtrack of the game is basically the same three boring tracks repeated over and over again and are quite forgettable. Some of the voices sound very distant and for some reason the knight talks like Darth Vader.

As far as achievements go there are twelve in total adding up to 200 gamerscore. Most of the achievements can be obtained by luck just from playing the arcade mode or with buddies. The most difficult of the achievements would have to be Against All Odds which requires you to defeat 25 warriors in Survival mode and Tournament to Kill could be quite hard if you aren’t that good at the game as this requires you to win a total of ten online tournaments. The game also has two avatar awards. The first is an exact replica of the in game Samurai outfit minus the head piece. This is earned by competing the Arcade mode with any fighter on any difficulty. The other is the mask that goes with the Samurai costume which is earned once you have competed the Arcade mode with every single fighter on Deadliest difficulty.

If you are a fan of the television show or fighting games in general this game should appeal to you. I myself am not a big fan of fighting games but I did enjoy this game. In the end it could have been a little more realistic but for 800 msp or $10 you are getting what you pay for and then some.

Craig Baker

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