Hands up who actually went to see this mess at the cinema? Come on, don't be shy. You at the back, come on, stop hiding, raise your hand. Yes you. Yes, you. Right, pay attention because this review is for you. You were duped out of a tenner to sit through two hours of fog-drenched boredom a few months back - do not be the doughnut to then fork out a few more notes on the game, okay?

Released to coincide with the Special Limited Edition Director's Cut DVD (would that be the one with the Lady of the Lake and Merlin, then?), the game is the film, only played out in glorious polygon-o-vision. Relive all the stifling fog, all the tedious battle sequences, and all the glaring inaccuracies you can cram down your gullet!

Despite its Dynasty Warriors pretensions, King Arthur is nothing of the sort. Whereas Dynasty Warriors games are played out on vast scales, with huge, corpse-littered battlefields, Arthur is a flatliner. It's so on rails we're surprised it doesn't come with a buffet trolley. Portions of the game map unfurl as enemies fall, then the conveyor-belt gaming shuffles and clunks onto the next section. Clear that and you're shunted to the next area. To illustrate just how damned linear it is, those old bugbears the 'invisible wall' prevent accidentally walking into the next area, and horses, God love 'em, can't jump felled logs. The fact they manage to walk at all is something of a miracle actually, especially as Arthur seems to be faster off them than he does on.

Then there are the ludicrous fights themselves. Enemies swarm at you from all directions while your AI allies lurch into the scenery or pivot on the spot, turning circles and being harvested like wheat. Collision detection is perhaps a concept that wasn't invented back when King Arthur was a Roman, and at seemingly random moments Arthur fires out streams of lightning from his sword. Eh? Why? Yet, despite its hero's lofty Emperor Palpatine impersonations, King Arthur also manages to be staggeringly hard. Now there's a winning combination: tedious and impossible. At one point, having fought through four sections of a level, Arthur is besieged on a log bridge and hacked to pieces. Then it's back to the very beginning of all four sections to try it all over again! Crack open the Diamond White, let's have a party!

It's unlikely you'd want to play this beyond, oh, say, the first two minutes, which begs the question of why the hell it was made at all. Sure, it looks almost alright, but it's like releasing a game based on Police Academy: Mission To Moscow or Problem Child 2. If you took one of those rat-bashing arcade machines and stood playing it waist-deep in a freezing river you'd have more fun. Putrid nonsense. Avoid.

1. Like the film, the game is touted as 'realistic'... yet Arthur can turn into a lightning monster (?).
2. It's based on a film that tanked at the box office. Surely that's reason enough to leave it well alone?
3. Dynasty Warriors isn't exactly ground-breaking gaming material but even that is infinitely superior to what you'll play here.
4. Collision detection is messy and painfully annoying. Grab the longest sword you can, then stay well clear and poke the air occasionally.
5. Your horse, when you get to ride one, is better suited to kiddies' rides in Blackpool. Since when did a horse not jump logs?

You'd find more fun at the bottom of a wheelie bin. To buy this is just encouraging all that is bad about film tie-ins.