Sword of the Berserk: Guts’ Rage

The plot goes that you, Gattsu (aka “Guts”) and Casca are the sole survivors of the Hawks, amercenary group mostly slaughtered by the supernatural warrior clan, ‘God Hand’. Only you are theone left mentally unscarred. For Casca, the lights are on but she’s not sure if anyone’s at home and theonly thing keeping her going is your love for her.

That’s all well and good, but just as you’re getting set to take revenge a deadly plague sweeps the landand poisons the inhabitants, turning them into disgusting creatures that apparently congregate in avillage near the castle protected by a nun (is that Big Brother’s Anna, the skateboarding lesbian?)

Translated into English, it’s just another third-person hack n’ slash game pitting you against a zombiecity with game play that’s way to repetitive. There’s also too many FMV sequences which are meantto set the atmosphere but just come across as boring and really slow the pace down.

It’s one for older kids, thanks to the presence of lots of unnecessary blood and gore and plays like a 3D version of Double Dragon, ie. hit most basic enemies once and they’ll just fall to the ground. Hitthem again and they’ll fall, flash on/off a few times and then disappear. We’ve been down that roadmore times than the Millennium Dome has had chances to make a profit.

One of the biggest complaints I have is that when I’m surrounded by hoards of monsters it’s difficultto work out where they all are. The camera is fixed on you and some of the baddies only come intoview when it’s almost too late.

Of the weapons I found to use, there were some arrows that made little difference in defeating theenemy, but also your chief big kahuna – the “Dragon Slayer” sword, which when waved about makesyou look like Siegfried in Soul Calibur.

One point worthy of note, is your only real chance to overcome those who stand in your way. Guts hasbeen branded with a mark, courtesy of the ‘God Hand’ gang. The manual details in whatcircumstances this will kick in and make you go Berserk’, resulting in a frenzy of activity, but for meit just seemed to happen at random and made him, powerfully, chuck a mental.

Overall, I can’t understand Eidos’ game-plan in releasing something so unoriginal with choppygraphics, dressed up in a ridiculous storyline as if we won’t notice. There goes their share price again.

Overall: 1½/5

This review was on Freeloader.com before they closed.