Head2Head – Golden Axe: Beast Rider Length: 00:04:36 Golden Axe: Beast Rider “tears” right through the competition with this Head2Head comparison.

We sat down with Golden Axe: Beast Rider for our latest Head2Head and boy were we in for a surprise.  Developed by Secret Level and published by Sega, this game was nothing more then a rip off of Heavenly Sword. In the end the comparison came close but only one system made this game only horrible, while the other was just plain shameful. We hope you enjoy this Head2Head cause we actually suffered through this one.

In most Head2Head’s it usually comes down to texture quality and this was no exception. Once again one can guess that this game was developed on the Xbox 360 due to the better textures. And overall this isn’t a bad looking game. PS3 stands very close to the same texture quality until you look at the ground. In almost every level we played the PS3’s ground textures were usually smaller and the normal maps didn’t have as much depth. In distance shots you can see that the PS3 certainly cut corners as well. For the most part the textures were not sacrificed on characters, which was at least a smart move but still not gonna win any Head2Heads.

We’ve never seen a game with more screen tearing then this game. And it wasn’t exclusive. Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 had horrible screen tearing. It was so bad that even some of these rollovers have screen tears. This game certainly set the bar. If a game tears as much as this game or worse, you better make sure you have your receipt. Lucky for us we didn’t keep these copies. And when it comes down to it, we hope you rent this game at best.

And while we’re ranting about this game, let’s dissect the title of the game. The golden axe that is mentioned in the title, didn’t actually come into play until the second stage. This can be typical when a game spends the first level teaching you how to play. But when the main character asks for a background story about the golden axe, and the other character says, “there’s no time”, you’ve just alienated anybody in earshot range(like the audience). How else is the audience suppose to know the story?

And what about the beast Riding? You get introduced to riding in the first level and after 10 step(count them if you don’t believe me) you get thrown into a cut scene! After the cut scene you get to ride again but your beast gets killed quickly and you don’t see it again in the entire level. And speaking of entire levels, is it too much to ask for a bad guy every once in a while? You come to openings where you fights hordes of bad guys. Then you run along paths with nothing to do for a while. Watch the video again if you want.  You spend a great amount of time running. Just change the name to “Unexplained Golden Axe: Beast Rider for Ten Feet, Run the Rest” so we don’t think someone dropped the ball. Sure it’s a longer title and probably won’t move as many units but at least people won’t feel as let down.

But as you know, like in the Highlander, there can be only one.  So this win goes to Xbox 360, although if I were Xbox 360 I wouldn’t want you to play this game.  This game does a great disservice to the gaming industry. Once again you’re left with a game that looks good until you play it.  We honestly can’t get over how bad this game really was. We’re almost sorry we made a Head2head comparison of this “game”.

	G R A P H I C S
	The Xbox 360 simply has the better textures
	P E R F O R M A N C E
	Overall this game ran terrible on both systems. There could not be any more screen tearing unless they actually went out of their way to program it in. neither system get’s the win here!
	C O N T R O L
	Exactly the same. Who would have though you could duplicate boredom?
	L O A D I N G
	Loading times were the same. Well when there’s only lameness to load, it shouldn’t take long.
	O U T C O M E
	And winning by only 1 point is the Xbox 360! But I wouldn’t be proud of this win. This game was poorly developed. If someone is forcing you to buy this game the Xbox 360 is the lesser of two evils. But hey, if you’re being forced to play this game, you’ve got other problems to deal with first. Stay away from this game.