Price: £39.99 Players: 1 Widescreen: No Dolby Digital 5.1: Yes Xbox Live-enabled: No Downloadable content: No When I reviewed the 2000 movie upon its DVD release, I said it was the Chinese equivalent of Gladiator. Sadly, this game is the Chinese equivalent of the recent and dreadfully dull, Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance, in that it's one long hack-n-slash game getting from one level to the next until... there's more of the same to follow, each time knocking them out with a "swish, swish... swish" of your sword and then an optional kick to send them flying into the air, as you use the 'strong weapon' button in combination with the regular one, even with a view to 'swish' them again on the way down for extra pain. Or, just use the strong button to send them flying - job done, mostly.

You can collect power-ups along the way, usually dropped by baddies or found inside big vases and boxes, and while I started off as Jen, who stole the Green Destiny sword from Sir Te, I understand you can go on to play the others but if they're all as tedious as this one then I doubt I'll bother. At one point, one of the enemies exclaimed, "Close the gate so they don't escape!" - Exactly what difference will that make since the characters are meant to be able to fly through the air anyway? The graphics are the best thing about this game - when they're static. Thanks to bloody awful camera work, I had to use an overhead view because I couldn't see what was going on, and it's possible to get stuck behind trees too, although at least with wooden stairs those go transparent when required. It's taken four years to release this game, it looks nice but plays like a game from four years ago. Just don't bother and spend your money on a far better fighting game for the Xbox like the stunning Soul Calibur II

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2004.