|
Reality Check , 17 December 2011
-
-
Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown
on Xbox
(2003)
Certificate: 
The blurb makes this game sound like the best thing since the invention of the fridge but it isn't. It's bland plot and bloated features make it a bore and a slog so it's time for a Reality Check!
The story is so convoluted it hurts. Most Robin Hood stories (including the traditional one) involve him taking on the Sheriff of Nottingham and sort of winning, but not really. In this, he batters the Sheriff in the first level and then sets his sights on the crown of England! Putting aside the fact that this would NEVER happen it's a pathetic excuse for the overblown gameplay.
The basis of the game is a poorly executed turn-based strategy title. You take land and recruit troops to fight other armies. These battle would be fun if they weren't represented by chess-peice-style wooden statues and moved along at a snails pace. After taking Nottingham you get to conquer other counties of England, albeit all the in the wrong place. Apparently Suffolk is about Herefordshire and Leicestershire is below Norfolk. The mind boggles.
Aside from the boorish strategy there's the mini games. Archery involves hiding in a tree and shooting passing guards without getting shot yourself, which is made impossible by the need to be pixel-point accurate and the lack of an aiming reticle. Jousting makes you hammer a couple of buttons (think sprinting in sports games) and then guide your lance to your opponents face, although whether you win or lose seems to be random chance. Raiding is the most fun, but also the most gruelling. You play as Robin and go cavorting through a big castle fencing with bad guys. The problems are myriad but the chief ones are the camera and the control. More often than not you'll be forced to fight a knight you can barely see or have to view from an awkward angle, for the sake of being cinematic. Which it isn't anyway. When you finally get used to the camera the control trips you up. You have high and low attacks as well as a block but whether you hit or miss is again pot luck. I tried alternating my attacks and doing my best to outwit my enemy but some of them just block everything. You have to be bang on with your blocking and dodging just to get in one hit at a time and it's tedious. If you can make it to the end alive you win the county. Very realistic.
Robin himself is outfitted with a posh English accent and sound like a tosser for the entire game. It's widely known that Robin Hood didn't speak like that and being from Nottingham myself I have some idea how he might have spoken. Why not be different and give him a Midlands accent? He's also a massively arrogant little sod, scoffing at everything the wise but ugly Marion says and agreeing with thick-as-treacle Little John most of the time. Sometimes he ignores everyone and just does what he wants, like a spoilt little boy who's been given all the power. After a while I didn't even want Robin to succeed so I turned the game off and sent it back.
This game tries way too hard to do everything and as a result does nothing well. Every element is poor and in need of work and the overall game looks shoddy and cheap. There's some temporary fun to be had but once you've tried everything it gets boring very quickly. I wish I could suggest a better Robin Hood game but the only other one is Robin Hoods Quest which I'm yet to play. You're better off watching the Disney film than playing this turgid monstrosity.
 
46%
from 18 members
|
