Deadliest Warrior: The Game, budget hack and slash

"Deadliest Warrior,"  Spike TVs popular series which pits modern and historical warriors together in a theoritcal matchup, has now been adapted into a video game for the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace for 1000 Microsoft points, aka $8.

"Deadliest Warrior: The Game," takes eight combatants from the first season and the second season to make one of the most fun and brutal fighters to have come along in some time.

The gameplay is near flawless as you can hack and slash your way through a difficult arcade mode to unlock new weapons and costumes for your favorite warriors. You can also prove you're the deadliest in the online and versus tournament modes. Trying to unlock new weapons can be surprisingly addictive due to each weapon having differing attributes in terms of damage they can deal and the speed with which they can be wielded.

A unique aspect to "Deadliest Warrior: The Game" is the chance of one-hit kill (a spear through the face is an instant kill and for good reason). The realism that the game incorporates makes many fights faster than most fighting games, but this also makes you less likely to go in swords-a-swingin’ and make you think some before you actually attack. The combat system is straightforward with high, mid, low, projectile, and signature attacks.

There are some flaws to the game though. The game lags on occasion and the audio is very bland as a whole. It would have been nice if the game could have been livened up a bit with commentary from the hosts of the show, Geoff Desmoulin, Max Geiger, and Dr. Armand Dorian, or the show’s narrator Drew Skye. With only some generic music, roars of pain from the combatants, and the anticipated SFX of metal on metal leaves you wanting a little more from the audio side of things.

There are promises of increasing the fighter roster as the show goes on and more medieval fighters are revealed, helping the game's replay value. You could have a roster of 30 fighters before the show is done. If that happens, I would hope that the developers also include some new arenas.

Although flawed, "Deadliest Warrior: The Game" is a fun, unique fighter that is a bargain considering it is only going to cost you $8.

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 9.0: A couple of minor glitches crop up here and there, but twitching dead bodies and blood spurting by the bucketful more than makes up for it.

Audio: 5.0: Generic music, expected SFX, and no commentary take away from the overall experience unfortunately.

Gameplay: 9.5: Unique fighter aspects like one-hit kills and the ease with which you can pick this game up make it a great overall fighting experience. Lag does crop up on occasion though and that’s the only thing that keeps this from being perfect.

Plot/Plot Development: N/A: After giving it some thought, I list Deadliest Warrior: The Game more as a simulation and therefore plot is a non-factor.

Replay Value: 7.5: You have your standard online versus and tournament modes, but the promise of more fighters for download as the show continues will make you come back to this more often than typical fighters.

Overall (not an average): 8.0: A few minor flaws can’t overshadow the legitimately solid experience that Deadliest Warrior: The Game delivers and I know I can’t wait for the first batch of new fighters to be released.

Deadliest Warrior: The Game is available now on Xbox Live.

Ray Carsillo has been writing about video games and other aspects of geek culture professionally for more than three years. For more of Ray's game reviews, visit raycarsillo.com.