DEADLIEST Bore-ier, uh, Warrior now on PS3!

I downloaded the demo for the Deadliest Warrior game today, wondering to myself, “What could be cooler than history’s greatest warriors duking it out for imaginary supremacy, right here on my very own PS3?”

The answer is quite a few other things.

Not as cool as it looks.

The demo gives us two fighters, the ninja and the Spartan, as well as one background in which to rumble. You can’t customize your weapons in this demo or see what arcade mode is all about, but at least you can customize the color of your warrior’s garb, as long as the color you want, aside from black and white, is either lime green or hot pink. I prefer to dress my characters in white so I can see the badly rendered wound effects more clearly.

Ninja laundry uses plenty of soap.

The full version boasts eight warriors to choose from, including a pirate for thousands upon thousands of obligatory pirate vs. ninja matches both in your own depraved home and online. Disappointingly, the roster does not include Rocky Balboa or Sarah Pailin.

Note the arms humorously waving in pain from just off camera.

The Spartan has a spear that’s approximately 7,000 feet long and colossal shield that would make even the mighty Captain America shed a tear in patriotic jealousy. The ninja is equipped with a pocket knife short sword, some kind of scythe and chain thing that I call “the whirly-do,” and six throwing stars (shuriken). The ninja always loses to the Spartan, even when wearing a hot pink uniform. He is stabbed relentlessly from across the screen while the Spartan uses his other arm to polish his golden armor.

Take THAT, Storm Shadow! What are you, some kind of snow ninja?

This is definitely a case of ninja racism. We ALL know that it would have never come down to a one-on-one battle between these two warriors. The ninja would have assassinated the Spartan at breakfast via poisoned Cocoa Puffs, or barring that, he would have used his laser vision to decapitate the Spartan, comically leaving the other warrior’s hand about to shovel cereal into a mouth that no longer exists. Conversely, if the ninja is feeling playful, he could set his eye lasers to low power and use them to heat the contents of the Spartan’s bowels, causing the armored titan to run to the little Spartan’s room and lose the match by missing it completely.

Other things Deadliest Warrior forgets about ninjas:

1. Ninjas can fly.

2. Ninjas slice off heads, arms and privates in one or two lighting fast movements, not 800.

3. Ninjas are impervious to inferior Spartan technology; Shuriken thrown by master ninjas have been known to penetrate titanium bricks 122 feet thick and still have enough killing power to show grandma the cold sting of death as she tends to her garden, thinking she is protected by her pathetic metal walls. A wooden shield would be toast in seconds.

4. Ninjas always win. NO EXCEPTIONS. (When two ninjas fight each other, it is considered a double victory.)

5. Ninjas can breathe underwater and probably in outer space.

6. Ninjas LOVE kittens. It is their only weakness.

(Extremely blurry) fatality!

What makes the Spike series of the same name bearable is that they took the concept of the old Neo-Geo brawler World Heroes and made it into a TV show. Deadliest Warrior, at least for the last 10 minutes of every episode, is kind of like watching a video game. But when you take the idea and go the opposite direction with it, you get an uninspiring PlayStation 1 quality fighter. And I’m not talking about  awesome PS1 versus games like Street Fighter Alpha, Rival Schools and Tekken. I’m referring to war crimes like Vs., Samurai Showdown III: Blades of Blood and Skydiving Extreme, the last of which is only considered a fighting game because of what most people do the clerk who sold it to them after playing for only a few moments. Herein lies the real problem with Deadliest Warrior: It would have been pretty good if it had been released 10 to 15 years ago, but now it just feels like a lazy franchise cash in.

But like I said, at least in the retail version you can play pirates vs. ninjas, which just might be worth the $10 price of admission.

THIS IS SPARTA!