A Bushido Blade clone that knows what it's doing.

Deadliest Warrior is a strange fighting game, a great one, but strange.
 

Graphics 3/5

        I'll get this out of the way first, the graphics are pretty good. At least for a $10 game they are. It uses 3D models and arenas that they attempt to make look real but the animations are very stiff and don't change to fit the weapon in use at the time, for example the ninja stabbing someone with a metal ball just is awkward. However when the animations do go off correctly they look good, like the Spartans execution move looks nice as he leaps towards his opponent to finish him off.  Overall the character models are good, the environments are decent but the animations leave a lot to be desired which led to the score of 3 out of 5.                                                   
 
 

Gameplay 4/5

       The gameplay in this title is what really caught me off guard, as a gamer I expected a game based off of a TV show to be pretty lackluster in the whole fun department. But it has surprisingly balanced characters, They have 3 different types of characters (Guerrilla, Warrior and Berserker) that all compliment each other in a rock, paper scissors kind of way but it still manages to factor in skill.
 
 

     The greatest part of this game is the unique style of combat it presents you. It's a one mistake and you lose type of game that does what it says it will do extremely well. If you decide to come running straight at a warrior with a throwing spear or gun, there's a one hundred percent chance that you will be one hit killed but if you play the game smart and tactically you can easily turn the tide from getting pummeled to capitalizing your opponents overzealous attack via a parry or dodge.
 
       Unfortunately like every fighting game the online boils down to people using set cookie cutter strategies like hitting you once and running which really drags the gameplay down, making you want to stray from the online portion. The other downside is on the highest difficulty, deadliest, the computer doesn't get any better but just gets moves and abilities the player can't do. Overall it really is a fun game but it's plagued by cheap tactics online and an AI that cheats on the more difficult levels forcing me to leave it with a four out of five rating.
 

Presentation 2/5

       This is where the game really falls short. The menus look cool and feel very gritty like what the developers aimed for but they are slow and clunky. If you wait on a screen for more than 10 seconds it will make you sit through a 15 second load screen to a gameplay video and you'll have to wait another 15 seconds after skipping that for the game to reload the menu. It's online navigation is good but suffers from extremely poor design choices. 
 
 
      The tournament mode is a great idea but the way it's presented just comes off as lazy, it really just boils down to the same thing as ranked matches, except you have to win 3 in succession to get more points towards the leaderboard system. Another issue it suffers from is when you finish a match in the tournament or ranked gametypes you are returned to the main menu every time, making you sit through multiple, unnecessary loading screens. In player matches you can rematch with your opponent which is really nice, but you can't switch characters after you choose the first time, meaning if you wanted to go from Viking to Knight you'll have to go through all the menus again.
 
 

     However, the game does do somethings right with its presentation. The leaderboards are extremely well put together with options to sort them by different categories like friends, overall, weekly and daily. It also lets you look at anyone who is playing the game in your Xbox Live party that is currently playing the game, allowing you to jump into their game, and matches online are generally lag free! Despite having those features the bad still outweighs the good in the presentation of this game, leading me to a two out of five score.
 

Overall 3/5

     

Despite it's many flaws this XBLA title is still an extremely fun, albeit gore filled fighter. The arcade and local versus modes are enough to justify the $10 price tag on this title, people looking for a solid online combat simulator should stay away from this for now because the online is pretty bad. But in the end the good outweighs the bad and for its cheap price this game is truly a gem worth picking up. Overall this game shines with it's Bushido Blade esque style and berserks its way to a three out of five stars, leaving a path of body parts and blood in its wake.