Xena: Warrior Princess

Pros • Monty Python Humour (i.e. catapulting cows) • Lucy Lawless and other star voice talent • Marvelous animation • Chopping the legs and sword arm off a zombie only to see it reach over, pick up the weapon and drag itself after you • Great graphic engine • Wicked special effects • Good variety of levels and bosses • Focussed, active levels	Cons • Who’s who when you are fighting the Amazons? • Power ups and special items don’t carry over to the next level • Spend more time in the final battle than getting there • Damn camera!
Bottom Line A great game, especially for Xena fans, but it is so short that I have to recommend renting rather than purchasing. In grade four, I played the King of Hearts in a Kersley Elementary School Production of Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. I was a small child, and playing opposite me, as the Queen of Hearts was the biggest grade seven girl in the school. Those of you who know Disney’s Alice in Wonderland will recognize that I, the diminutive King, spent the entire play being yelled at and bossed about by this domineering Queen of Hearts. After the play, as I sat, still in costume, in the family Ford Club Cab with my Father, waiting for my Mother to arrive with the other siblings, my Dad said nothing about budding acting talents nor the brilliance of the production in general. Instead, after a moment of silence, he turned to me and very seriously said, “Son, never marry a woman who’s bigger than you.” So, not only did I have reservations about EA’s Xena: Warrior Princess being a licensed Tomb Raider wannabe, but I also carry this hesitancy towards large women that my Father engraved in my mind on that formative evening. Well, while Xena is certainly a large woman capable of knocking Lara Croft on her ass, Xena: Warrior Princess is decidedly not a Tomb Raider wannabe and the game is an outstanding representation of the very popular Xena television series. I still probably couldn’t marry Xena, but I enjoyed playing her game.

In grade four, I played the King of Hearts in a Kersley Elementary School Production of Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. I was a small child, and playing opposite me, as the Queen of Hearts was the biggest grade seven girl in the school. Those of you who know Disney’s Alice in Wonderland will recognize that I, the diminutive King, spent the entire play being yelled at and bossed about by this domineering Queen of Hearts.

After the play, as I sat, still in costume, in the family Ford Club Cab with my Father, waiting for my Mother to arrive with the other siblings, my Dad said nothing about budding acting talents nor the brilliance of the production in general. Instead, after a moment of silence, he turned to me and very seriously said, “Son, never marry a woman who’s bigger than you.”

So, not only did I have reservations about EA’s Xena: Warrior Princess being a licensed Tomb Raider wannabe, but I also carry this hesitancy towards large women that my Father engraved in my mind on that formative evening. Well, while Xena is certainly a large woman capable of knocking Lara Croft on her ass, Xena: Warrior Princess is decidedly not a Tomb Raider wannabe and the game is an outstanding representation of the very popular Xena television series. I still probably couldn’t marry Xena, but I enjoyed playing her game.

3rd Person ACTION / adventure

While Xena: Warrior Princess shares the basic game mechanic of giving a gamer a third person look at a shapely female figure involved in free roaming action and adventuring, similarities to Tomb Raider end about there. The developers of Xena at Universal Studios come from a much different school of game design than do the creators of Tomb Raider at Core. Xena is all about action. The levels are directed and focussed. Gamers always know exactly what to do and there are sufficient hints to ensure that their route is equally direct. There is no wandering around lost, confused or stymied by puzzles in Xena. Instead, there is action; lots and lots of action.

Battle On, Xena!

Xena: Warrior Princess is all about combat. Xena must hack, slash, chop, stab, boot to the head, knee to the groin and Chakram her way to the end of the adventure. Melee combat has never been better realized in an action / adventure game. Control is fabulous and Xena is a whirling dervish of destruction to her enemies. Yes, it is button mashing, but it is more than that. Besides her sword and boots, Xena uses her Chakram, which is a ring that she can toss sniper style. The Chakram can also be steered in flight for awesome around the corner decapitations. Besides its combat usage, the Chakram also comes in handy for solving the puzzle elements that are in the adventure.

During melee combat, combos and special moves are useful and entertaining, but the speed of the 3D movement and positioning is what really makes the game entertaining. What is more, the developers have found ways to vary how combat plays out. While much of Xena’s time is spent in open clash of arms, there are also stealth sequences, bosses that have to be pushed over cliffs and other surprises to keep things fresh. Or, it could just be that the game is really short that keeps things feeling fresh.

As Long as a TV Episode

Xena: Warrior Princess has very short and focussed levels. This is brilliant in that the player is always active and always having fun. Dying within sight of the end of a level is no great calamity since most levels only take less than 5 minutes to successfully complete once Xena gets it right. The gameplay is always frenetic. What is sacrificed in this style of gameplay is length of adventure. I have spent more time losing to the game’s final boss, which just let me say, is a marvel of animation, than I spent getting to that final encounter.

Before you get all worked up about the game being too short, I want you to consider how long Tomb Raider games would be if you didn’t count all of the time that you spent wandering around frustrated and confused. Many gamers won’t miss that time. However, Soul Reaver and Syphon Filter are two games that played more along the style that Xena follows and both were much longer adventures.

Great Licensing

Xena: Warrior Princess accurately recreates the atmosphere of the television series and uses some of the same characters. Voice talents from the television series, including Lucy Lawless are used for the game, and using a popular license hasn’t lulled the developers into half-heartedly coding a mediocre game engine. This game is always fast and furious and the environments, particularly the outdoor areas are unmatched on the PlayStation. The special effects programmer on the team must be the best in the business because the effects, especially the flame effects are amazing. I guess, though that the development team didn’t include any cameramen from the TV series.

Damn Camera!

Camera work is always a sticky item in 3rd person perspective games. In Xena, because of the speed of the melee combat and the 360 degree action, the camera gets to be a real problem. Gamers will walk off many cliff edges, get stabbed repeatedly in the back and get stuck in corners that they can’t see out of. None of this is overly irritating, it’s more like an itch you can’t scratch than an open sucking wound because the levels are so quick and focussed. Restarting, even near the end of a level because of shoddy camera work isn’t very irritating when you can get back to the same spot very quickly with just a little more of what is entertaining gaming. That is, until the final boss. I already mentioned that I have spent more time losing the final battle than I spent getting to it, and I maintain that, while it may be that I am just not Warrior Princess enough to handle it, the main problem is the damn camera. I have been cursing it continuously with full throated adult cursings for three straight days.

Fun While it Lasts

Camera issues or no, Xena: Warrior Princess is a great game. Xena’s fans will surely be satisfied by this virtual romp through the Xena universe, and no gamer will be disappointed by the active, entertaining level design and great melee combat. It’s great fun while it lasts.

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