Taking place some time before the movie, the game harkens back to when too-cool-for-a-last-name Mathayus had to save the world from a guy named Magus and his entourage of untalented nobodies and cronies. This is Mathayus' first adventure, when he was only a wee tyro in some sweaty hamlet, and it shows. He looks like a malnourished version of his later self, runs like he has the rickets on top of a violent case of scoliosis, and his freakishly graceful jumps look more like a goofy representation of interpretive dance. The bland story unfolds with bland dialogue through bland looking cutscenes and FMVs that look like something from a Simple 1500 game and most of which are gracelessly unskippable. And Mathayus himself, the newly proclaimed Hollywood action hero, barely has any one-liners. So when he finally does open his mouth, it'd be nice to think that he'd say something earth-shattering or at least relevant, but it's often along the lines of "I needed that" (after picking up a health power-up despite being at full health) or "Looks like my training was well worth it" (after failing a timed mission minigame) or "I really hope you didn't pay full price for this game." When you have a license on something as cheesy, limp, and lame as The Scorpion King, the ability to exploit it well is as far as your credibility really goes.

After completing the first stage, where you beat on all the townspeople in massive and rude ways and write it off as "training", one can't help but feel a tiny pang of auspiciousness. There's a combo system where you mix and juggle between the Square and X button (surprisingly fluid); a block-and-counterattack maneuver (consider the applications); throw and air-stomp moves (the latter used to find secret items); weapons and shields to utilize (each with it's own distinct feel and gradations in ease of wielding); and a stamina-bar-draining super attack (the icing on the cake). Things go relatively well - in fact, you might even say I was enjoying the game - up until the third or fourth level, where everything hitherto established gets tossed out the window. Apparently someone forgot to playtest the long sword, which is endowed with too much power and too much speed, where fighting defensively and using super attacks becomes worthless and a liability. The enemies, being walking, brainless knobs, all gather around with death wishes and no will to live at all, so becomes a matter of simply waiting in a corner (and usually, there's no need for even that) and pressing the X button and watching them drop from fell swoop after fell swoop, rendering the game's other ten or so levels astoundingly easy, challenging only for children in the earliest stages of video game novitiate.

The bosses, naturally found at the end of the levels that are far too long for their own good, actually do present a marginal bit of challenge, and require some timing and scrutiny for weak points. Though I think I'm more impressed by the fact that Point of View actually attempted something original than anything else.

There's a certain feeling you'd receive from watching a Russ Meyer movie after spending a fortnight with Andrei Tarkovsky, Akira Kurosawa, Kryzsztof Kielswolski, and David Lynch: it's a nice change of pace but you'd kill to go back to being sick of quality. So likewise with The Scorpion King, where I'm willing and able to get instantly away from this tepid and unattractive potboiler, which couldn't have been anticipated by and targeted to anyone other than suburban 14-year old boys. To be fair, King does accomplish a few things correctly, but to be truthful, it does a lot more things poorly.

· · · Sqoon