Author Topic: Dead's DLC Diagnosis - Deadliest Warrior: Legends  (Read 2284 times)

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Offline Deadeas

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Dead's DLC Diagnosis - Deadliest Warrior: Legends
« on: July 21, 2011, 03:43:39 AM »
In this new feature, I will examine various DLC and Arcade games from the Xbox Live Arcade, giving my opinions on them in what I'm gonna call...

I'm going to come clean: I hate Deadliest Warrior. The show is rarely balanced, the factions chosen are frequently denied their best weapons for examination, and the fact that their much-touted simulation program is nothing more than some fancy CG graphics over a disguised Microsoft Excel spread-sheet is just laughable. Well, you might ask, why bother reviewing a game based off the series you seem to hate so much? Simply put, dear reader...I loved the first game. Yes, despite for my near-illegal hatred for the TV series, I loved the original Deadliest Warrior game that was released for the Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network. I loved the gameplay, I loved the fighters included, and I loved the frantic & frequently-fatal fights against my foes. (Quite a bit of "f" sounds there, I know.)

When I heard that they were making a sequel, I fully expected to end up with a half-hearted rehash of the original, not unlike anytime Capcom attempts to release an "updated" version of Street Fighter.

Boy, was I wrong.


A few words on my ratings system...
Now, in terms of ratings, I'll be going with a 5 star system, mainly because of the easy division into Bad/Below Average/Average/Above Average/Excellent and the fact that anything else is needlessly arbitrary. The review will be separated into four sections: Story, Graphics, Gameplay, & Sound.


Story
Well, if you were expecting some sort of explanation of why nine (ten, if you count the unplayable boss character) of history's most notable warriors and conquerors are fighting one-another across various locales...Well, you're playing the wrong game. While there is a "story", per say, inside the Generals mode (see the Gameplay section), it isn't really of import. You're here to kick the asses of the rest of the legends, either in single combat or at the head of an army.
1/5

Graphics
If you've played the first Deadliest Warrior game, the graphics aren't all that different. They do their job and the art direction is about what you'd expect (including making the Greek amphitheater into an expy of a set from 300), with character designs resembling their historical counterparts rather closely, with a few anachronistic touches in sight. In particular, the one area in which the art design excels is the different weapon designs. Overall, barring the limited animations (each fighter only has a single intro/outro animation) and physics flubs (such as being able to shove Genghis Khan into the pit of death with no arms), the graphics are nice, but nothing particularly notable or groundbreaking.
3/5

Gameplay
Ah, yes. The one category that is right in this game's wheelhouse. If you weren't aware, the Deadliest Warrior games focus around fast and furious battles that rarely last over a minute, with each attacker capable of ending the fight with a single hit, if the player is skilled enough to do so. This game, while refining the core fighting gameplay, adds a few new features. For one, a player can now shove an opponent, which is particularly useful if you need some space mid-battle...or want to shove an enemy into one of the environmental pit-falls, another new addition. The other main addition to battles is the ability to grapple your opponent, which shoves you into a rock/paper/scissors-style mini-game where you can either break an opponent's arm/leg or outright kill them with an insta-kill attack. These additions help to make fighting even more fun than the first game, allowing for an experience rivaling the most recent 3d fighting games from most major triple-A franchises like Street Fighter.
These additions alone would normally warrant a re-release alone, but that happens not to be the case here. No, there is an entirely new addition to the Deadliest Warrior franchise with this release: Generals Mode. Within Generals Mode, you play as your respective chosen warrior and attempt to conquer a pre-chosen game map, combating an enemy warrior for control of land. In practice, this translates to a Risk-like game mode where fighting the enemy champion consists of massing forces against one another en-mass, only engaging in honor duels when you attempt to take a castle they control. This is the real star of the game, allowing for a mix of tabletop-style strategic thinking with the twitch gameplay normally expected in a fighting game.
A word of warning: at the moment, online play is clunky. Generals Mode isn't available for play online yet and if you want to switch fighters or arenas online, you're forced to start an entire new match. This isn't a problem for me because I prefer to play local multiplayer, but it may be for you. You've been warned.

4/5

Sound
This'll likely be the smallest part of my review, if only for the fact that there isn't really anything to talk about when it comes to sound. The sound effects are about what you expect (in fact, I half-think they're recycled from the first game), the music is average, and there isn't anything particularly bad worth discussing. Wait, scratch that last part...I need to discuss the voice acting for the characters. If you don't like repetition, you're gonna have problems. As with the animations, the characters only have one intro/outro phrase. I, however, find these phrases hilarious. Hearing Alexander the Great throw some change down to his fallen foe, saying "For the afterlife" in a disinterested tone hasn't grated on me for the nearly twenty hours I've played. You, however, might get tired of them easier than I.
3/5

Overall Rating
All in all, this game is damn better than a tie-in for Deadliest Warrior deserves to be. It is an ideal example of a sequel, an improvement on the original that adds more gameplay options and refines what makes the original great. Even in the light of the online hiccups, I highly recommend it.
4/5