Kengo is the eagerly-awaited follow-up to the classic Bushido Blade series.

So what do you expect? If it's on PS2, it must be good! Well, think again.

Kengo is an all-out samurai sword-fighting game and although it supports two players, it is very much a one-player game.

What Kengo has done is remove the positive qualities from Bushido Blade and actually incorporate some of its serious failings. Life bars have been introduced, and the facing problem is made even worse by some peculiarities of control and a new camera system that changes the movement and attack controls at the drop of a hat. I just can't figure out why they should decide to change all these things - to break what was not broken, and expand the broken stuff even further.

The life bar issue, admittedly, could be argued either way. Much of the effect of the lack of life bars in the first game was psychological, after all. That element was a signifier of the fact that you could die in one stroke, which was the real issue in gameplay. Kengo, though, along with the addition of life bars, seems to have changed the damage balance to eliminate the one-hit kills.

The presentation of the game is second to none, yet once again PS2 has let us down on gameplay. What is the point of having such a good looking game when it plays like a pig?

Graphics 5/5

Sound 3/5

Gameplay 2/5

Gamespan 2/5

Overall 2/5