The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian
Score: 84% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Universal Interactive Developer: EA Games Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Action/ Adventure
Graphics & Sound: The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian is easy on the eyes. From the opening screen, the menus are done beautifully. The in-game graphics are great to look at as well. The environments are always rendered one room at a time, but each room looks great. The colors are dark and earthy, very fitting for the setting. The character models are well developed. Mathayus really looks like the Rock, and all the enemies have well defined characteristics about them. The sound is one of the more pleasing aspects of the game. The background music adds to the setting, although you don't find much originality as the game progresses. The voice acting by Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson and other actors are well done.
Gameplay: You start out in The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian as Mathayus. You go through your training and then start the storyline. The game plays in a straight line, and it is very difficult to miss something you're supposed to find. You are sent on a series of missions. The story wasn't as deep as I would've hoped, however. Scorpion King gets very boring to play after a while. You just don't have to do a lot of thinking to get through this game. I can only count about 6 times in the game where you don't continue the storyline only by killing everything in the room.
Difficulty: The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian offers only one difficulty level. Experienced gamers won't find Scorpion King too much of a challenge. I didn't really face much difficulty, and I'm not even a heavy action/adventure player. The game can be difficult to beat, however, if you do not spend much time looking for Strength and Endurance bonuses that are scattered around the game. During your training you are told about a few combos, but you really only need one or two buttons to get through most of the game (just keep slashing away at everything that moves). Trying to finish Scorpion King a second time is easier because you start the second time around with the Strength and Endurance you finished the game with the first time through.
Game Mechanics: Scorpion King has some issues with camera work. The camera, for the most part, follows you whenever you start walking in a direction. There are times, however, (especially in boss fights) where Mathayus is facing the boss, but you can't see him because you were just running the other way. They do allow you to press the R2 button to auto adjust the camera, but by the time you do that, you've already had a fireball knocking you on your ass. The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian is easy on memory card space, taking up only 80 KB. Loading times are fairly quick, and the backgrounds for loading and menu screens are well done. Scorpion King is a fun game to play, but I would only recommend it to those who like hack and slash games, or those who just want more Rock memorabilia. The game just lacks the depth needed to be a great game to play over and over again.
-Dark Hornet, GameVortex Communications AKA Clovis Mello
MLB Slugfest 20-03 NBA ShootOut 2003