The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian (PS2) 28/11/2023

Beat em up serving as a prequel to the film starring the rock before he got big... err bigger. Whelp that didn't take long I'd thought it would be longer then five weeks before I gave a game a 1/10 but in rode the Scorpion king to teach me how not to design a game 101. This game is such a drag, a boring franchise deserves a boring game I guess, you go to the same looking places beating up the same looking people ad nauseam all the way up to the credits. There's one level set in a hellscape kind of place that spices things up a little but adding spice to a meatloaf isn't going to make it gourmet its still going to be bland meatloaf, I don't like what the Rocks cooking here at all.

You have four types of weapons at your disposal; your fists, a sword, a bigger sword and a spear, not that it matters as there's no thought in which to use you just pick which ever does the most damage and stick with it until you reach the next upgrade. Enemies are rarely better none of them make you fire up your brain to even lukewarm temperatures they all act the same as they just line up be slain, its like they want out of this game as much as I did. Bosses have very slight gimmicks to them which at least makes you raise an eyebrow but these guys take so bloody long to kill its infuriating. The last level is the apex of these faults with you cycling through the same five rooms and fighting the same boss not one, not two but three times! Do the devs think that's enough ways to waste our time, this game has so many reused assets I almost feel sorry for it, almost.

Now the crux of the reason I gave this game a 1 is because the last boss is unbeatable unless you picked up hidden stat upgrades jotted throughout the prior levels, did the game tell me about these upgrades? No of course not they are mentioned briefly in the manual as "cunningly hidden secrets" gee thanks that helps a lot. What this means is that there are small cracks on the floor at certain points that you have to stomp on to get them I found one in the last level but by then it was too little too late I was woefully under levelled to beat the final boss and had no way of replaying past ones so I was soft locked right at the last hurdle. I had to resort to a cheat to progress otherwise I was faced with the premise of replaying this game and giving it seven more hours of my life and no sane person would even contemplate this dark thought. Any game that pulls something like this can burn in the pits of Duat, its not funny, its not clever its just an absolute kick in the teeth.

Dwayne embodies his nickname here with such a stiff performance, he talks to friend and foe in the same monotone voice with none of his trademark charm, I'll chalk this up to bad voice direction as I'm a fan of the Rock and I've seen great performances from him. The story has something to do with the Egyptian gods?... I don't know and no one cares I've wasted enough of my life to this game. So absolute trash that truly its at the rock bottom of 6th generation games, avoid like the plague.