AFRO !

Its kinda funny how we get into things sometimes. Your either a fan of the book, movie, TV show or even the game. Enter Afro Samurai. Here's a piece of entertainment that almost passed me by. I originally had no interest in Afro Samurai till I played the Demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace. I even foolishly wrote off the game and anime series before giving it a shot just out of pure ignorance.

What is Afro Samurai all about ? Well in short, he's the number 2 Samurai in the world and he's looking to kill the Number One. Not for fame or fortune, not even for the title of being a God. Simply put , Revenge. You see along time ago Afro’s Father was the number one, and as a little boy Afro’s father was slain right in front of him. From there his training begun.

Immediately after playing the demo I was hooked. Now in the real world cross media doesn't always mix to well. We seen many movie and TV shows become just awful games and vise versa. So what makes Afro’s game so appealing ? First is the beautiful cell-shaded art style. It gives the characters from the show a new more vibrant life.

Once you find yourself done being mesmerized by the games beauty, it wont be hard take notice of the hip hop sound track produced by the RZA from the Wu Tang Clan. Speaking of audio, Afro himself isn't a man of many words, but he has a sidekick Ninja Ninja that wont shut up. Both of them happened to be voiced by none other the Samuel L. Jackson.

Now for the most part the hack-n-slash gameplay is sound. Of course like many games of this genre the camera tends to hamper the fun a bit (think Ninja Gaiden). Now I haven't purchased the full game yet . I need to find a time were this game will fit into my heavy gaming schedule.

For now I fulfilled my needed for Afro Samurai by watching the 5 episode mini series and I look forward to watching the movie next. I still find myself playing the demo every other night or so as well. If you haven't already then I say give the demo a spin, if you have any appreciation for art or music you should at least take notice to what's got me all hyped to play the game. I also strongly suggest trying episode one of the mini series. Its rare that I'm wrong about this stuff , you’ll love it for sure !

-TX