Ah, so that's why the Americans do it. *That's* why they impinge on someone else's history, manipulate it and install themselves as the hero. Not because they're a nation of morons who can't pronounce the name of the country they invade and think grammar is the woman who sits on the porch knitting flags. No, it's because it makes it more interesting. When they tell the story straight, the result is a yawn-fest like this.

This is boring from beginning to end, and never gets more than a little better. Missions are based around scripted events designed to give the gameplay a movie-like feel. And they do. Problem is, the movie it feels like is King Arthur, and that was a whole world of toss. So, having selected a character (choices vary from mission to mission) what happens is ths: enemes attack; you fight. Then a cut-scne might show a tree falling, say, or the enemy cresting a nearbyhill. Then you fight them as well, and then some others, by only after another cut-scne depicting another unnecessary thing.

This might be okay if the fighting was fun but, even with the various upgrades, it isn't. Fair play to the unbuckling framerate when a couple of dozen medieval sorts are going at it hammer and tongs, but less kudos for the action being at times so frenetic (note: not exciting) that it's impossible to revel in individual kills, because they're almost irrelevant in terms of the drawn-out battles. Characters typically carry a bladed weapon and a bow, and playing as Tristan (one of the middle class-sounding characters you get to control) there is some satisfaction from his deft interchange between the two and his deadly use of the latter - though mostly what occurs is a button-bashing homage to every poorly conceived combat game ever made.

Events take an interesting turn when the horses come into play. More than just a place to sit while you chop up peasants, King Arthur's horses are veritable equine warriors. They kick, they rear and they trample people underfoot, but again the unrelenting drudgery of the game design means even this quirky diversion quickly becomes overused and boring.

Wooden voice acting and irksome fixed camera that necessitates the kind of transparent scenery we might expect in a 12-year-old isometric adventure don't help matters much, nor do the invisible barriers. It's almost forgivable to have your way across a huge verdant meadow rudely blocked by an unseen force field, but it's incredibly annoying to have enemies swarming down a riverbank and be unable to take the tiny step up out of the river to take the fight to them.

So, in a perfect mirror of the ultra dull movie, King Arthur the game warrants big yawns, rolled eyes and a stretch towards the 'off' switch. Attrociously flawed? No. Worth playing? See previous answer.

Graphics 70%
Fans of foilage will be enraptured...

Sound 50%
Fans of decent dialogue will not.

Gameplay 40%
Repetitive, taxing, bor-Zzzzzz....

Lifespan 50%
The co-op two-player offers some hope.

Overall 50%
A tedious telling of the Arthurian legend, and a game which is uninteresting without ever being downright poor. Dull, dull, dull.