Oh gosh. We weren’t expecting much from Kengo Zero but even we didn’t predict just how awful, truly, truly awful this actually is. It’s one of those games though that, try as you might, you can’t find any redeeming values to it, no matter how hard you look. And even though common sense tells you to stop playing it you do try to plough on through it just in case you’re missing something. We can tell you now, you’re not. And since there’s no explanation or tutorial as to how the fighting works we may as well run through a few of the basics. ‘Run through’! Like with a sword! Ho ho.

We can tell you now, you’re not. And since there’s no explanation or tutorial as to how the fighting works we may as well run through a few of the basics. ‘Run through’! Like with a sword! Ho ho.

You’ve got three different stances, clicking the right bumper switches them and then you can let loose with incredibly boring looking three-hit combos. Yawn! It’s probably just the fact that most of these moves are like real things samurai did with their swords, but you’re not really going to be able to tell the difference between them especially when all it really equates to is whether you’re attacking high, middle or low.

You can try to get some sort of difference going in the combos since you’ve got two attack buttons but more often than not you’re just going to wade in and start hammering. It doesn’t seem to make much difference whether you try to go for some skilled and timed buttons presses or just whacking a fat thumb over both buttons until the enemies die.

There is a sort of counter/parry/grab button that sees you and your opponent clash swords and from there you can throw them off and get a free hit in or move them about the scenery to, well, not much effect at all.

It’s the missions that really grate, and usually only after the first few kills, as tons of spookily similar enemy samurai (and sometimes ninjas) run at you. There’s no end to the level, you just have to keep chopping them down until they stop. By which point you won’t be able to look yourself in the eye in the mirror for playing such crap.

Tim Empey