Crush Your Enemies, See Them Driven Before You...

DATE: 2002-06-03 21:15:26

One of the joys of a Saturday afternoon is catching a showing of one of the most under appreciated movie genres of the early 80's - the barbarian movie. Conan, Red Sonja - the formula was pure gold. Take a few muscle heads with big swords, a snotty royal brat, and some sort of magical do-hicky and you had yourself a movie. For whatever reason, barbarians never made it big in video games. With the exception of maybe Golden Axe, there haven't been many barbarian games.

Looking to fill this void is Titus, with their game titled - simply enough -Barbarian. Instead of going for the traditional fighting game, Titus has included RPG elements such as storylines and experience to help give the game that little something extra fans expect in games. One of the main selling points is the almost complete customization you have of your character. I wasn't able to play with the Quest mode in the demo, but the final version should have about 300 different story paths as well as the option to upgrade your character through experience points.

One of the coolest things, I thought, were the interactive environments. I know what you are thinking. Every time a company says 'interactive environment', that usually means there's a table or banister that can be broken if you just happen to hit it right. When I was told I could pick up just about anything in the arena and use it as a weapon, I thought the same thing. Then I picked up a column and laid the smack down on my opponent with it. Things really got good when I picked up his body and started to use it as a weapon!

Barbarian will also feature a multi-player mode which will allow for up to four players to compete at one time. You can even take your customized Quest mode character to the multiplayer mode.

Look for a review of Barbarian for the PS2 in a few weeks. GameCube and Xbox versions are also planned.

Starscream aka Ricky Tucker
"...see that. That's fine. Just tell hime that the 'package was recieved. I don't have time to..."
- Un!d#n#!f!ed #9ent, SilverFish Team(?)