Wednesday , March 27 2024
Warriors, come out to play-ayyy! No, wait, on second thought, don’t: just go away-ayy.

PlayStation 3 Review: Warriors – Legends Of Troy

You begin with storming the lands of your sworn enemy, engaging them in one bloody battle after another, fumbling your way to victory. Accompanying you are some of the greatest legendary heroes ever, who assist you in your quest to reign supreme. No, it’s not Dynasty Warriors, it’s Warriors: Legends Of Troy — a similarly-constructed game by the same developers (Tecmo KOEI) who, for some reason, felt the world needed another adventure game wherein you wander from Point A to Point B and slaughter everyone in your path.

Normally, that’s not a bad thing in my book. Or anyone else’s for that matter (I imagine). We enjoy going around and making things become dead via video games because we are not permitted to do so in real life — unless you’re a dictator, that is. But that’s irrelevant, of course: our focus point today, kiddies, is Warriors: Legends Of Troy.

Whether you saw that CGI-laden motion picture epic with Brad Pitt or you actually paid attention to that book you were assigned to read in high school, you may have heard of the legendary Battle of Troy, wherein Greek warriors rushed to Trojan shores in order to chew bubble-gum and kick ass: only to discover they were all out of bubble-gum. The game switches back and forth between sides of the fabled conflict: you get to lead your fellow Greeks inhabiting the personas of such mythical champions as Achilles, Ajax (the foaming cleanser), and Paris — but you also get to adopt the bodies of Trojan leaders like Hector and…er, that that one guy.

From the first chapter, in which we are treated to some half-decent animations with narration, we see how the entire game is going to play out: you run around and kill the enemy. Now, as I had previously said, this isn’t necessarily a bore in video games. However, when your game developers have done nothing more than re-dressing the characters and sets of their Dynasty Warriors series, it gets more than a mild tedious at an alarmingly-fast pace.

Do you enjoy hitting the square button repeatedly without ever really having to rely on any sort of variation to your gameplay? Well, this title might just be up your alley, then, because that’s about all you do here. Oh, sure, it tries to disguise the ever-building sense of monotony by throwing in a “guest hero” every now and then to assist your present character in battle — but your computer-controlled co-warrior usually just gets in the way and does little else than irritate you; becoming as unwanted and unwelcome as an Owen Wilson cameo in a Ben Stiller movie. Or vice versa.

While the locations of the game’s battles change from chapter to chapter, they never manage to alter the action (or lack of it, as it were): it’s still the same old shit you saw before in any one of the several dozen Dynasty Warriors games. The character animation isn’t anything you would want to write home about, either. As you’d expect, your “main” lads boast a bit more detail than their peon cohorts do, while the aforementioned cutaway animation is on-par with a PS2 release.

In an attempt to make things a bit more interesting for the “been there, done that” crowd, Warriors: Legends Of Troy has a few side features afoot, such as the accumulation of Kleos (a Greek word often meaning “renown” or “glory”), which you are awarded via victorious skirmishes with your enemies. Your Kleos points can in-turn be used to purchase new items for your battling boys (something Homer would no doubt approve of). Several other features are “locked” at the beginning of the game, and only become available as you develop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from continuously hitting the square button (and maybe the triangle or circle).

Ultimately, though, Warriors: Legends Of Troy is about as effective of an invasion as the Bay of Pigs. The game (and its formula) could have greatly benefited from some fresh blood in its system; but, sadly, all was spilled on the beach in the first chapter.

Warriors: Legends Of Troy is rated M (Mature) by the ESRB for Blood and Gore, Violence. This game can also be found on Xbox 360.

About Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the alter-ego of a feller who loves an eclectic variety of classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) film and television. He currently lives in Northern California with four cats named Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Margaret. Seriously.

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