Call me impressed.

Judging from early screenshots and movies of Barbarian, I didn't go into this thing expecting much. However, from the opening screen until the end I was really impressed with the look of the entire game. Everything has a very high-quality look. Muscles ripple, fur moves, rock faces really look like rock faces - for a time everything seems right in the world. Yet, things are not since the game is plagued by both camera and clipping issues. The feeling you get while playing through these extremely detailed arenas is killed the first time you attack someone near a wall. Instead of hitting the wall, characters go into the wall. Had this been a PSOne game, or even a very early PS2 game I would have an easier time excusing this - but as far as things have progressed, it is becoming harder and harder to excuse. Barbarian also suffers from a few bouts of slowdown, but it is nothing major.

The soundtrack is just what you'd expect from a game called Barbarian. Drums thunder, horns blare - it's fantastic. The same goes for the voice acting, which is about as good as it gets in regards to games. I was especially impressed by the narrator - this guy could make reading the phonebook sound like an important document.

Barbarian tries, but for some reason or another, all of the pieces don't fall into place as they should.

Through his dark powers, the wizard Zaugg has convince the people of Barbaria that there is no hope and that their existence is futile, allowing him to easily take over the land. However, prophecy foretells of a great warrior who will rise up against Zaugg and liberate Barbaria. This is where you come in. Taking control of one of 10 warrirors, you will decide the fate of Barbaria.

What sets Barbarian apart from other fighting games is your arenas and the amount of options you are given in dealing with enemies. As always, you can use the standard chops, pummels and smashes to deal with him, but sometimes that just isn't enough to get the point across. This is when you pick up that big column on the floor and pummel him with it. Everything in the arena - boxes, rocks, and even other bodies - can be used as a weapon. This adds a bit of strategy to the game and keeps it from being another fighter. However, this is not executed as well as it could have been. Numerous times I tried to grab something and could not because my character was not in the 'sweet spot', resulting in my character not picking up the item. Of course, this makes using items a near pointless endeavor, and the game quickly degenerates to its brawler roots.

As you progress through the game's main quest, you will be presented with opportunities to choose where the story goes. For example, after beating a character you can either choose to chase him down or investigate something he mentioned during a fight, giving the game some replay value. Also, as you travel through the story, your character will gain experience, allowing you to customize your character to fit your style. As an added bonus, you can use your customized character in multi-player matches.

From the start, Barbarian is a tough game. While most of this is due to control issues, the game has quite a few balancing issues. For example, enemy characters are extremely cheap. Since the computer obviously does not have to work with the same ill-executed combos that you do, they always have their most powerful attacks ready at any moment. To make things worse, some battles come complete with an ally for your enemy or the fun stipulation 'enemy's health regenerates'.

Control is what really drags Barbarian down. I found the controls loose and unresponsive. Many times I found myself getting beat down just because my swing was a just a hair too late or the block button was not working (something that tends to happen a lot). Unlike most fighting games, Barbarian's fighting system involves very little strategy. Part of the fun of fighting games is figuring out different juggle combos and seeing how different moves interact with each other. This is not the case with Barbarian since every combo is scripted and must be performed with precise timing in order to have any effectiveness. The controller features an 'easy play' button which is supposed to negate the timing requirement, but over the course of the game its possible to forget this button, even if it worked as well as it should have.

Despite its technical flaws, Barbarian is one of the better games to have come from Titus in a few years and shows promise. Barbarian could have been a must have, but flaws lower it to a rental.