Even worse, as more enemies appear, or if you simply walk out into a more open area of the level, the frame rate starts to take a noticeable hit, slowing to a crawl in some of the later levels. It's less of a problem on the Xbox and GameCube versions than it is in the PS2 version, but come on -- this is the machine that ran Jak & Daxter and Ratchet and Clank without a hiccup. Other than the varying levels of slowdown, there is no difference between the three versions.

Achieving 100 percent completion, which should be a huge challenge in any game, is a walk in the park in Samurai Jack. In each level you play (excluding hubs and boss fights), there are a number of glowing green Buddha statues lying around. Aku's minions have also captured some of the locals and placed them in cells that are scattered around the level. Your completion score for the level is based on the percentage of statues you find and villagers you rescue. Without making any sort of concerted effort to search for either, I consistently scored a 90-100 percent completion rate in every level I played through. Samurai Jack offers a few power-ups that you can find and earn, including elemental swords, new sword techniques, and health meter power-ups. But these only serve to make an already easy game completely mind-numbing.

Samurai Jack's most entertaining feature is the slow-motion "Sakai Mode" that Jack can enter when he's saved up enough "Zen energy" from hacking up enemies (which I believe is the way the Buddha originally intended us to achieve Zen). In Sakai Mode, the entire world slows to a crawl as Jack zips around obstacles and enemies in relative super-speed. It's hardly an original feature these days, but it is a good trick that doesn't get old quickly.

Jack is surrounded.
The levels themselves are generally quite large and fairly well-designed for the most part, but they feel like your first apartment: lots of empty space that isn't being used for much. Monotonous waves of combat are broken up with some rudimentary platform game elements, such as, well, jumping from one platform to another. That's it, for the most part. With few exceptions, the levels are lead-you-around-by-the-nose linear, giving you no reason or desire to explore. Actually, in many ways, Samurai Jack feels like the exact opposite of Adrenium's only other game, Azurik: Rise of Perathia, which was lambasted by critics for featuring expansive levels that offered no hint of direction as to your next objective. That porridge might have been too hot, but Samurai Jack's is far too cold.

Samurai Jack feels like the first draft of what could have been a fun action-adventure game, once the plot was added and the battle system was tweaked to provide a challenge. The animations of Jack and the enemies are really quite smooth, and the game's audio is top-notch, featuring a soundtrack faithful to the original cartoon's and voice acting by the series' regulars. As it stands, however, Samurai Jack is an uninspired, tedious, derivative game that fails to capture any of the energy or coolness of its source material. Die-hard Jack fans might get some enjoyment from renting Samurai Jack on a 5-day pass from Blockbuster (which is four days longer than you'll need), but it's definitely not worth forty bucks of your hard-earned cash. Save your money for the release of the Samurai Jack: Season 1 DVD set when it's released this May. Not only is it cheaper than the game, it's also longer.