Another day, another hack ‘n’ slash fighter on the old Xbox 360.  With such a glut of these games on the console, it takes a fair degree of invention and quality to stand out amongst the competition and, given Sega’s pedigree and the good name of the Golden Axe series, you’d expect Golden Axe:  Beast Rider to deliver the goods.

Well, the short version is that it doesn’t.  Prepare yourself for approximately one thousand derogatory words explaining why.  Where does one start?

Let’s start with the story.  It’s a typically thin tale of conquered lands, slain heroes and all-powerful baddies who can only be beaten using special axes.  The story focuses on Tyris Flare, one of the original trio of Golden Axe heroes, as she chops and maims her way through a seemingly endless series of stages and her story is told through shoddy PS2-quality cutscenes.  Not good so far.

One big minus mark is that you don’t get a choice of heroes like you did in the 1989 original.  Instead you are stuck with Tyris and her, strangely pitiful, array of spells.  Tyris was always the magic user in the original game and so it’s disappointing to see the dragons and giant burning hands of Golden Axe replaced by a weak circular flame attack and a sub-Ryu powered fireball.

The graphics throughout are particularly average and bland and with no map to guide you it’s all too easy to get lost in identical looking mountain passes or hills especially as everything seems to be coloured in bland greys, browns and greens.  Again, the invention of the original with it’s flying eagle and turtle levels is sorely missed.

The standard light orchestral score and crunchy sound effects are there just to keep the overall air of averageness going and neither do a particularly sterling job of creating atmosphere and neither does the voice acting.  It’s just average which, unfortunately, makes the sound the best part of the game by some distance.

Yep, the gameplay is where this game really lets itself down and in some considerable style.  The developers, Secret Level who were responsible for Iron Man (risible) and Final Fight: Streetwise (dogshit), have really excelled themselves by ignoring all of the competition and simply recreating the original game but in drabber settings and with far more frustrating gameplay.

First up, you only get three attack moves.  A weak strike, a strong strike and, if you press both simultaneously, a knockback attack.  Very limited combos, ala the original game, are available as well but don’t expect anything particularly flowing or exciting.  In an attempt to add some depth, Secret Level have added possibly the worst countering system since that of Dead or Alive 4.

If an enemy attack glows orange you can press LB to evade it and then counter.  If it’s blue you press RB to parry it.  To keep things dismal you get a few nano-seconds to make that choice.  Of course, some attacks can’t be parried or evaded and instead you have to jump away.  Easier said than done with controls that respond as quickly as Titus Bramble.

Now you can add to that long-range attackers who either shoot magic bolts at you (press RB at some unspecified time to possibly deflect it) or, and get this, create boulders above your head and drop them on you.  Yeah, that seems fair doesn’t it?