Thanks to a sponsorship by Sprint, the PlayStation 3 game Rag Doll Kung Fu is free for a week. The freebie downloadable title is a first for the Sony console.

But even free is not without its costs. You’re wasting time, hard drive space and thumb energy on a dull, lifeless arena fighting game that lacks personality and, even worse, online multiplayer.

Lest you think I’m being harsh because Rag Doll garnered a seemingly respectable 68/100 score on the review aggregator Metacritic, bear in mind that the video game rating system skews alarmingly high — reminiscent of Homer Simpson’s evaluation of Marge’s cooking as “Seven thumbs up! My lowest rating ever.”

Total PlayStation, which gave the game a 70 out of 100, wrote “Rag Doll Kung-Fu: Fists of Plastic is a disappointment in almost every sense of the word” while PSX Extreme, which rated the game a 60, said “There just isn’t a whole lot here, and we weren’t enthralled enough to recommend a purchase.”

Still, free is at least better than the $10 the game originally cost.

PlayStation Store Update [PlayStation Blog]

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