King Arthur

King Arthur��s destiny, after debuting last July in third place behind Spider-Man 2 and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, was to become a second-tier fantasy movie...and now, a fairly second-rate game.

More or less following the movie��s plot of handsome Englishmen (and blue-hued barbarians) fighting evil Saxons, Arthur is an out-and-out copy of Electronic Arts�� last two Lord of the Rings beat-em-ups. Period. This is not necessarily a bad thing��it means movie clips cutting right into gameplay, voiced dialogue in the middle of battle scenes, and enough sword swinging to make your right arm look like Arnold Schwarzenegger��s circa Pumping Iron. To this you can add a few sequences on horseback and a two-player arena mode featuring all your favorite movie characters dueling in places filled with spinning blades and other hazards.

Sounds like all the ingredients for ripping adventure in ye times of olde, right? Well, yes...except you can��t help but compare Arthur to the Rings library. Do that, and you��ll find outdated graphics, unhelpful computer-controlled allies, and a general sense of hack-and-slash ennui making Arthur just as nonstirring as the film was to a post-Rings audience.

05 OUT OF TEN

PUBLISHER: Konami // DEVELOPER: Krome Studios // PLAYERS: 1-2 // LIVE: No // MSRP: $39.99 // ESRB: T

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Xbox Nation.