Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked review

Who knew mashing buttons could get so dull?

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After a while, the only consistently interesting parts of the game are the challenging boss battles, which actually require timing, patience and skill. But even these can get irritating; one mad-bomber boss filled his areawith deep craters that are literally almost impossible to avoid (they seem to have an actual gravitational pull). You know your game is in trouble when you steal the most infuriating element of the legendarily bad game E.T.: The ExtraTerrestrial for the Atari 2600. Never played that one? Just know this: Atari literallyburiedthousands of them in cement vaults inthe desert.

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GenreAction
DescriptionA violent, hyperstylized, hip-hop romp through 19th-century Japan that introduces some cool new ideas but gets old fast.
Platform"PS2"
US censor rating"Teen"
UK censor rating""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
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Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.