Dual Blades is a fighting game that seems to borrow a little of everything from an assortment of popular one-on-one combat games. General gameplay is reminiscent of SNK's Samurai Shodown series, complete with bladed weapons and gruesome finishing moves. Special attacks are laden with projectiles and somersaults, just like those found in Capcom's Street Fighter games. Last but not least, super attacks are outlandish and fill the screen similar to those in Sammy's Guilty Gear X. Since it borrows traits from so many other games, it's no surprise that Dual Blades is generally decent. Nevertheless, the game desperately needs its own identity and doesn't quite achieve the same consistency as the more established fighting game franchises.

At a cursory glance, the game certainly has a lot going for it. There are nine included characters, each of which has its own unique set of attacks and special moves, as well as its own specific background location. They all look completely different from one another, so you don't necessarily notice that the roster is smaller than that of other GBA fighting games. The included gameplay options are also more than adequate and include single-player arcade, linked versus, time trial, survival, and practice modes.

Still, when you actually put a few matches under your belt, you can't help but notice that Dual Blades blends together an amalgam of basic styles without actually incorporating the kind of deep gameplay so necessary in a one-on-one fighting game. Each character has an assortment of slashes and special moves, but very few of them can be chained together into complex combinations. Likewise, counterattacks are extremely basic and usually only result in an opportunity to take one punitive stab at the enemy. This isn't to say that there aren't large combinations or various ways to combo into finishing moves--there just aren't that many of them.

The game is remarkably easy to just dive into and play, however, which makes it perfect for the large subset of players who haven't yet begun to refer to fighting games in terms of tiers, turtles, ratios, or any other blasé vocabulary. You only have to push buttons to slash and hold back to defend, while special moves use the same quarter-circle, double-tap, and charge motions found in any number of previous 2D fighting games. As such, it won't take long to attain proficiency with the entire roster of characters. The game also earns high marks for its gruesome death scenes, in which you can actually decapitate or dismember an opponent with a final killing blow.

In addition to the basic "hold back to block" defense that's typical of the genre, Dual Blades also includes a block-parry system similar to the one found in Capcom's Street Fighter 3 and Capcom vs. SNK 2 games. If you tap forward into your opponents just as they attack, you can block their strikes with your weapon and counter with a quick strike of your own. A successful parry also regains a touch of lost stamina. For as clever as the concept is, you can't parry successive attacks, which limits the move's practical use to isolated defenses against strong slashes and single-hit special moves.

The game's best feature is its rage system. Each character has two pairs of attacks that can result in a number of beneficial situations, such as multihit combinations, defensive boosts, or strength increases. Before the match, you get to decide which two of the four attacks you'll use during the fight, so there is some strategy in choosing the pair that best suits your style. As the fight progresses, the rage meter fills as you land attacks or incur damage. When it's half full, you can unleash the weaker of the two attacks, and when it's completely full, you can unleash the single stronger attack or a pair of the weak variety. These rage attacks are easy to combo into from regular attacks and are gorgeous to watch since they often fill the screen. An added benefit of the rage meter is the recovery move, which lets you trade a chunk of rage power in order to cancel out of a special move or interrupt an opponent's combo.

Besides its limited design, Dual Blades also exhibits a number of minor imperfections that may displease pickier players. Collision detection isn't always accurate, such that throws and hard slashes sometimes pass through an opponent. Another problem is that some special moves are difficult to execute as intended, since some characters have attacks that use both double-tap and quarter-circle motions--which aren't always easy for the GBA to distinguish, especially when you're in a crouch position. CPU behavior is also fairly limited, which means you'll want to graduate to human opponents before the computer's predictable patterns and cheap counters become too tiresome.

If you can see past the rough edges of the game's design, which a lot of players will, there's no denying that Dual Blades is one of the more polished fighting games to land on a handheld in some time. The characters are quite large and absolutely full of animation, which is especially impressive considering that they all have their own set of attacks and that no one character is a duplicate of another. Likewise, the backgrounds are colorful and creative, even if they're not as detailed as those in Capcom's previous Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival. There aren't many voice samples, but audio manages to keep pace with the game's visuals due primarily to a choice assortment of operatic music and a few meaty slash effects.

If you're the kind of person who tends to squeeze the most out of fighting games, you'll find that Dual Blades is a somewhat brief and limited adventure. The gathering of many different gameplay styles is interesting, but they're never brought together in a manner that begs to be mastered. As such, Dual Blades is better for those seeking vicarious thrills or a game that friends can play without hours of basic instruction.

The King of Fighters XIII Review

When we last left The King of Fighters, things weren't looking good. The King of Fighters XII, which was released in 2009, looked beautiful and had a solid fighting system, but its dearth of single-player content and busted online functionally killed it for many players. Now, The King of Fighters XIII is here, and it addresses all of the issues the previous installment faced. XIII is an immensely robust game that adds a lot a new content to XII's solid mechanics, and it easily earns this series the right to stand alongside other fighting giants in the genre's spotlight.

As with its predecessors, The King of Fighters XIII features one-on-one fighting between two three-person teams. When one fighter goes down, the next is subbed in--after a brief but frequent loading screen--until one side's team is exhausted. In the ring, gameplay feels similar to Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition. Though quicker than Third Strike, XIII shares the same fundamentals of smart positioning and timing. Positioning comes from proficiency with the game's movement options. With four types of jumps and a roll that can pass through anything but throws, it takes practice to navigate the battlefield quickly and efficiently.

When used well, these movement techniques make you feel nimble and keep the action focused on offense. You always want to be building momentum with fancy footwork and calculated strikes. But even at its most chaotic, the game still allows you time to think. There's a satisfying tension in planning your next strike or in deciding how to break the enemy's stride. XIII has its own rules of engagement, and understanding these rules--and when to break them--lets the game's personality shine. As with any strong fighter, the ebb and flow of advanced play is as much about strategy as it is about execution.

There are three main gauges to manage in the game: power, hyperdrive, and guard. In broad strokes, the power gauge focuses on offense; it is used for enhancing special attacks and desperation moves. Next, the hyperdrive gauge is for being stylish. You can burn this meter to cancel certain special attacks into others or activate hyperdrive mode. In this mode, your character can link together moves and build combos that aren't otherwise possible. Finally, the guard gauge depletes as you block attacks. If you let it run out, your character enters a vulnerable crumple state--so be careful.

The entire system feels very flexible. Each character has the tools for building devastating combos and quickly navigating the field. This uniform character design also carries over to vitality. Unlike in many fighting games, characters in XIII have the same amount of health, which means an attack will deal the same amount of damage no matter whom it hits. Each character's health gauge is broken down into sections for additional clarity. Once you learn how many sections a certain combo shaves off, it's easy to see when to cash it in and finish the match.

You can test your skills in Story mode, though if you're not familiar with Elisabeth Blanctorche, Ash Crimson, or why that one guy from Fatal Fury is here, then you're going to feel a little lost. This mode lasts only a few hours, but it has multiple routes and endings. Once "completed," a massive storyboard becomes available. From there, you can revisit different points in the tale and select alternate routes through it. There's also an Arcade mode that's heavier on the action and is where you can unlock the game's two secret characters.

For new players, the game has various teaching tools designed to introduce the basics. The tutorial and mission modes do a fine job of this, but they don't explain why these moves are important. Knowing the tactical merits of a hop versus a hyperjump is just as vital as their execution. This problem not only exists in XIII, but also in fighting games in general. For combo training, XIII's combo trials are well implemented. They display their inputs clearly, as well as feature demonstrations to aid execution and timing. In addition, characters have their own Time Trial and Survival modes to further hone your skills.

All of this preparation would be for naught if it didn't support a solid online offering. Thankfully, XIII does not repeat XII's mistakes. It offers an online experience that's smooth and stable, provided you find an opponent in the three-to-four green-bar range. If you fall below that, you'll encounter noticeable (though not unplayable) performance dips. When you finish, you can choose to save that match's replay for future viewing. While it's a nice touch, there is not a system in place for sharing or viewing other's replays. Sadly, Spectator mode is also absent in online play, which leads to a lot of bored players during group games.

Whether you're online or off, the game's presentation is simply gorgeous. The 2D character sprites fill up the screen with astonishing detail, such as the way their clothing flutters. The numerous stages are equally impressive--and infinitely more detailed--featuring hordes of overly excited spectators or a pack of elephants encircling the ring. There's even a color edit mode where you can alter your fighter's color scheme to your liking. All of these features, combined with the tightly balanced fighting mechanics, make The King of Fighters XIII a fantastic game that can easily go toe-to-toe with the heavy hitters in the fighting game genre.

For those not already in the know, Gundam is a long-running Japanese anime series that has gone through many transformations over the years, telling the tale of a continuous interplanetary conflict involving warriors who pilot giant robots. With the exception of the lukewarm Gundam Side Story: Rise From the Ashes, which was released for the Dreamcast earlier this year, most of the Gundam games have remained in Japan. Gundam Battle Assault is a 2D fighting game featuring Gundam robots. The game originally came out in 1998 under the title Gundam: The Battle Master 2 in Japan, and now Bandai has decided to bring the game to the States.

In the game's single-player mode, you play as Heero Yuy, and your mission is to destroy the remaining giant robots, or Mobile Suits. This sets up a frail storyline that manifests itself in between-fight text exchanges between the combatants. Aside from the single-player mode, there is also a two-player versus mode. In both modes, you can choose from several different Mobile Suits, including the Wing Gundam, the Zaku II, the ZZ Gundam, and the Z Gundam. Each Mobile Suit has various normal punch and kick attacks, as well as special moves. Some special moves - rifle firing, for instance - are limited by the amount of ammo you have. You also have one super attack - always executed with a double fireball motion - that can be executed three times per bout. Also, you have thrusters that can be used to jet around the screen, and you can dodge attacks by ducking into the background for a second. A beam shield can also be employed to protect you from projectile attacks. Each mech has three life bars, and the fight doesn't stop until one of the mechs has all three bars depleted, which means the fights usually last a while.

For a game originally released in 1998, Gundam Battle Assault still has an interesting look to it. The robots are positively huge. Some of the larger bots are as tall as the screen. The camera moves in and out as the Mobile Suits get closer to and further from each other, always keeping tabs on the action. The only real problem is that the mechs look really, really blocky. As a trade-off, the combatants move pretty fluidly. The sound effects and music are fairly standard, though the dramatic "end of fight" effect and some of the explosions sound pretty good.

Gundam Battle Assault isn't a good enough game to live on its own - the fighting is competent, but hardly compelling for any length of time, and the story mode is completely uninteresting. This is one of the few instances where applying FMV would have actually helped the game, especially when you consider the large amount of Gundam footage that Bandai could have chosen from. If you're a Gundam fan, well, this review doesn't matter - you've probably already preordered the game. But if you're just looking for a good fighter, Gundam Battle Assault doesn't fit the bill.

Super Street Fighter IV Review

In a world where downloadable content keeps games fresh long after their shine has started to fade, fighter fans may perceive the retail release of Super Street Fighter IV as a way of double-dipping into the pockets of series devotees twice in consecutive years. But that's not the case here. While the game expands on the solid base established by its precursor, Street Fighter IV, brawlers who dismiss this as merely a lick of paint and a roster update will do themselves a major disservice by passing on its excellent features and gameplay.

Some of the changes, such as the introduction of a second user-selectable ultra combo per character, new online battle modes, and fresh animated cinematics that bookend each storyline, are obvious, but plenty of work has also been done under the hood, away from prying eyes. Each character has been rebalanced to maintain a level playing field; for example, Sagat's Tiger Shot damage has received a minor reduction, while Ryu's fierce Shoryuken now lands two hits instead of one. For a game as ferociously contested online and offline as Street Fighter IV, these fine adjustments are just as important as introducing new fighters to the already well-populated roster.

Super Street Fighter IV adds 10 new playable characters: eight from previous Super Street Fighter, Alpha, and Street Fighter III games, and two brand-new ones. This brings the total roster up to 35 playable characters. The game's complete character roster--which is now available in its entirety from the outset and no longer requires multiple completions of Arcade mode in order to be unlocked--includes the 12 classic world warriors: Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Blanka, E. Honda, Zangief, Guile, Dhalsim, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison. All of the Street Fighter IV characters return: Cammy, Fei Long, Sakura, Dan, Rose, Gen, Abel, Crimson Viper, El Fuerte, Rufus, Gouken, Akuma, and Seth. New additions to the lineup are ninja schoolgirl Ibuki; young martial arts entrepreneur Makoto; Muay Thai kickboxer Adon; heavy-hitting Native American T. Hawk; Final Fight characters Guy and Cody; beat-crazed dancer Dee Jay; and gentlemanly pugilist Dudley.

Turkish oil wrestler Hakan and taekwondo Shadaloo agent Juri also make their debut. These two handle very differently from each other. While the comical appearance of the bright red Hakan and his body-oil-bathing routine are a bit strange, it does give him a competitive advantage; he uses heavy hits and slides in tandem with his grapple abilities to send opponents crashing into walls or looping in orbit around him like a hula hoop. By contrast, Juri's speed makes her nimble and deadly, perfectly suited to chaining together midair combo kicks, while her twirling EX Senpusha provides wide-reaching antiair defence.

Whether this is your first foray into the series or you're a seasoned vet, there is plenty of help available to get you up to speed with the characters and their abilities in Training and Challenge modes. Training is a free spar area to practice your moves with an AI-controlled opponent, while Challenge walks you through 24 must-know attacks and combos per character. While last year's game forced you to complete a challenge before being allowed to move on, accomplished and impatient players can now work their way through sequentially or skip the basics to tackle more difficult tests. The Survival and Time Attack modes have unfortunately been removed, but they've been replaced by the fun and nostalgic car and barrel destruction bonus stages, which can be played in isolation or woven into Arcade mode.

The game's story loosely holds your hand as it guides you through the fighting tournament the characters are taking part in. The attractive anime-style cutscenes in SFIV have been refreshed and give you another glimpse behind the gloves at the usually ridiculous motivations of the combatants. In true Street Fighter style, cutscenes ask as many questions as they answer, and though the characters' relationships with one another carry on from previous games in the series, first-timers and returning fans should have no trouble following along as the shallow story unfolds and steers you through the short Arcade mode.

All of the gameplay mechanics introduced in SFIV (such as focus attacks and rival matches) make return appearances, and you can now choose one of two ultra combos per fighter. This grants the choice between a ranged attack or close quarters combo to suit your play style. The ultras are listed only by name, and while they're easy to distinguish for all of the returning characters who were in SFIV (since all the new combos are marked in purple as Ultra II), expect some experimentation to work out which one you want to use for less frequently played characters.

A handful of new environments have been added to the mix and give you the chance to exchange your flurry of punches and kicks in a busy marketplace, atop a Metro City skyscraper construction site, and beside a river in an African landscape during a solar eclipse. They're varied and vibrant, and subtle touches, such as approaching hippopotamuses, cheering crowds, and clay vases that topple and smash as you pummel your opponent, give each locale a lively feel.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects Review

On paper, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, Electronic Arts' new fighting game, has all the ingredients usually found in a wild success. If you're looking for star power, Marvel Nemesis's solid selection of beloved comic book superheroes and brand-new metahumans fits the bill; Marvel's characters use all of their classic mutant attacks and techniques, and the rookie Imperfects hold their own, too. These guys can fly all over the screen, swing on webs, and throw cars at one another, just like in the comics. Plus, all of the action takes place in various fully destructible environments, and the whole package is supported by a pretty robust online infrastructure (except in the GameCube version of the game). Unfortunately, these parts, as promising as they are, do not form a particularly appealing whole. Marvel Nemesis has been engineered in such a way that you must slog through the game's weakest parts to gain access to its best features--and you'll have to wrestle with some serious balance and gameplay issues along the way.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects's story makes about as much sense as you'd expect from a beat-'em-up built from decades of pulpy pop-culture clich?s. Niles Van Roekel, a sinister bald fellow in a lab coat, has somehow precipitated an alien invasion of New York City. Over the course of several ugly in-engine cutscenes, you'll learn that Van Roekel himself is an alien, and he's hell-bent on developing an army of super powered goons to counterinvade another planet. Or something. In the course of his obsession, Van Roekel has failed repeatedly to generate the ultimate fighting machine--six times, to be exact. These six extremely dangerous assistants, known as the Imperfects, are Van Roekel's most powerful shock troops. In one-on-one combat, they're a match for the best superheroes (and villains!) Marvel can muster, from Spider-Man, Venom, and The Thing to Wolverine, Magneto, and Daredevil.

That's the best part of Marvel Nemesis by far: titanic battles between super powered adversaries. The problem is that the developer has buried these occasional clashes in an ocean of mediocre, homogenous, button-mashing gameplay. In order to unlock most of the game's content--which includes playable characters for use in the one-on-one mode or online combat, collectable cards, animated comic books, and several short videos--you have to get through the game's interminable single-player scenario. This consists of dozens and dozens of short levels that take place in just a handful of fighting environments, which you'll return to again...and again...and again. You may start at a different point in the arena, or have a different objective to satisfy, like blowing up power generators or throwing a certain number of enemies into a pit, but it feels like the same thing in every single case.

The game tries to dress this up as a kind of story-driven adventure by giving you a choice of up to four different characters' paths every time you beat a level. For instance, you might play through The Thing's story for a couple levels, until you best one of the other characters in a boss fight. Then, you'll have exhausted that story path for a while and you'll have to switch to another character, like Storm. Each character has both a good and evil manifestation, depending on whether they've been subjected to Van Roekel's alien mind-control technology. This is how the game rationalizes all of the bizarre match-ups it throws at you.

Sadly, there's no such excuse for the seemingly endless army of faceless alien mooks, of which there are only a few basic types, that you have to defeat on the way to a boss fight. The assorted little guys try to slash at you with blades, shoot you with blasters, or grab on to you and blow up; you can typically kill them with a single flurry on the attack button. Bigger guys can actually deflect your basic blows, counterattack, and teleport, as well as throw heavy objects at you. They take about three basic combinations to kill. Finally, there are the flying enemies, which are definitely the scourge of the single-player game. These things are very, very difficult to hit, and they can do an absurd amount of damage with their blasters.

The single-player levels are mind-numbingly simple at first, but they ramp up in difficulty quickly, although there's no consistent challenge gradient. Simply put, Marvel Nemesis's gameplay system was pretty clearly designed for one-on-one fights, and it doesn't function very well when you're confronted by multiple enemies. For example, there's no lock-on system for directing your attacks--you simply have to try to line up your character with the enemy and then launch your assault. Therefore, it can be difficult to defend against attacks from multiple directions. The camera mechanic doesn't make fighting multiple enemies any easier, because it'll zoom in and out at odd points, and many enemies will launch attacks from offscreen. The game won't tell you when this is happening, or from what direction, so you may be blindsided by a thrown car, right in the middle of punching another enemy out. The right analog stick allows you to free-look, but it's impossible to do that effectively in the middle of a brawl; mostly, you'll just have to try to keep the bad guys in front of you.

Another serious problem has to do with the game's overuse of environmental obstacles and weapons. It seems like most of the levels are saturated with things that can be picked up and thrown, and many of these things are also explosive. Whether you get beaned by a small piece of equipment or are subjected to an exploding oil drum, you'll take far more damage than you would from other types of attacks...and it's far too easy to wander into a field of explosive objects in the middle of a fistfight. Yes, it's possible to catch thrown objects and toss them back, but the fact that there's no way to refill your life gauge (except in very rare circumstances) leaves very little margin for error. The environmental combat is a neat idea, and it's well-executed in some respects, but the game leans on it too heavily.

Indeed, the single-player game's many imbalances and loose ends make it feel like a hastily sketched-out afterthought, rather than the vital component it supposedly is. For instance, if your character has a projectile attack, it may autotarget the enemy you're aiming at--or a stone column right next to it. On the other hand, if you don't have a projectile attack, it's literally next to impossible to line up an attack on the flying drones, which will pick you apart from the air; it's not unusual to be pinned in a corner and simply dispatched in a few seconds, with no chance for recourse. Finally, parts of the enemy artificial intelligence simply feel broken. If you stand at the edge of a gap, grunts on the other side will simply fall right in and die. Even the bosses don't display much in the way of street smarts; we occasionally witnessed them launch blistering attacks while facing in exactly the wrong direction. This heap of small annoyances adds up to a frustrating experience overall, no matter how skilled you may be.

All this is a shame, because the game's controls actually make a lot of sense for more casual players. As mentioned above, there's a basic attack button that'll create combos with repeated tapping, a jump, a block/dodge, and a throw. The left shoulder button controls movement powers, like Storm's flight and The Wink's teleportation, while the right shoulder button applies super powers to whatever you're doing at the time. For instance, holding down the right trigger while attacking will trigger an extrapowerful combo, while performing a power throw can initiate a brutal finishing move in one-on-one combat (sadly, you cannot skip these animations--and some of them are on the long side). Using super powers depletes your power meter, but it also fills up the rage meter, which will grant you temporarily unlimited use of super powers when full. Otherwise, the power meter recharges slowly on its own, and you can accelerate the charge by holding down the right shoulder button while stationary.

With some practice, this system can prove to be both elegant and entertaining, provided that you're fighting a duel. While playing as Spider-Man, it's a great feeling to be able stick to a wall, snag a nearby statue with some webbing, and send it hurtling towards an enemy. Each character has at least one mind-blowing maneuver like that, such as Venom's totally insane corkscrew attacks or Paragon's bomb trails. It's a little too easy to execute a finishing move, though. All you need to do is perform a massive attack on your opponent, causing them to momentarily enter a "danger" state, and then pull off a power throw while relatively close to them; you need not deplete their life meter completely, and there's no counter against it.

The PS2 and Xbox versions of the game feature a fairly robust online mode that's easily the game's most enjoyable feature. You can jump into a quick match with another player, or set various parameters for a more controlled experience. Obviously, other players won't exhibit the same behavioral quirks as some of the CPU-controlled opponents, so the fighting feels somewhat more natural, and there's no apparent lag at any point. The game keeps track of your success rate, too, and offers up very comprehensive stat tracking and leaderboards for comparative purposes. Although it still has access to offline duels against a CPU or human opponent, the GameCube version of the game lacks online multiplayer entirely, and this is a sore loss indeed.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects has a good presentation, but it doesn't clear the bar by a very wide margin. This is a very character-focused game, so it makes sense that much of its graphical flashiness resides in the character animation, which is absolutely top-shelf. The developer seems to have taken great pains to make the characters move and fight the same way they do in the comic books, and the effort has paid off. The faster characters, like Spider-Man and Fault Zone, flit about with a fluid grace, while big guys like The Thing really look massive and can shatter the pavement with their jumps. All of the attacks, movements, and powers have a highly authentic feel to them, which is sure to please Marvel fans. At its best, this game really does look like you're playing a through a comic book.

The environments where the characters do their fighting, however, aren't nearly as fun to look at. Most of them are actually sort of bland. Most of the walls are decked out in dull, lifeless textures, and the light and shadow effects are mediocre for a console game coming out in late 2005. It seems as though the developer was going for a flat-shaded comic book look, but wasn't quite able to pull it off convincingly. Furthermore, the destructible elements in the arenas don't fall apart or blow up with a convincing degree of violence--exploding cars will produce a shock wave, for instance, but they don't send out a shower of debris, and the husk is just an ugly black polygon. The looks the best in the GameCube and Xbox versions of the game, which is able to render the lighting effects and textures with a little more subtlety; the PS2 version is pretty comparable, though. Happily, the frame rate holds steady in all three versions, even when there are many moving objects onscreen.

Marvel Nemesis's sound is pretty average for a game of its type. The sound effects are good enough to augment the onscreen violence--especially when you start zapping baddies with lighting bolts or throwing fireballs--but they're certainly not going to knock anyone's socks off. Overall, they're a pretty quotidian collection of beat-'em-up thumps, bashes, and breaking glass. The game's music is also on the forgettable side; it's standard-issue superhero stuff, with lots tense-sounding synth orchestras and keyboards. It blends into the background nicely, which is probably exactly what the developer intended. The voice acting sells the characters, each of whom get silly opening and closing lines, as well as some occasional dialog during the cutscenes. It's not award-winning work, but it's not bad, either.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects could have been a decent beat-'em-up game that provided some great fan service, if its poor single-player scenario hadn't unhinged the entire process. This game has tons of content, great characters, and simple controls, suggesting that it was designed with more casual players and/or Marvel fans to pick up and immediately enjoy--but the ragged gameplay mechanics and balance issues that infest the one-player game will likely frustrate this very same audience to no end. If you're a patient player that's into the subject material, you'll probably get some benefit out of Marvel Nemesis, thanks to the wealth of comic book goodies and the solid online fighting. All others should approach this game with caution, because there are certainly better beat-'em-up fighters out there.

The Neo Geo arcade hardware has always been known for its fighting games. So why should SNK's portable system be any different? While many of the character graphics here are the same as King of Fighters R-2's, the gameplay and character roster emulate the style and selection of Real Bout Fatal Fury 2.

The game tries hard to play like Real Bout 2, and it pulls it off pretty well. The mid-air turnaround move is intact, as is the three-stage power meter. It even has the big, drawn out "get in the ring" display between matches. But the character roster has been chopped down quite a bit. Still the character selection is nice, and represents enough of the different Fatal Fury fighters, including Terry, Andy, Rick, and Billy Kane.

Unlike King of Fighters R-2, which was a powerhouse of options, Fatal Fury: First Contact has two options - one player and two player link play. A couple of hidden characters give the game some replay value, but the game really falls flat when compared to the extras in KOF R-2 and Samurai Shodown 2.

The game has great graphics, and it manages to do a good Real Bout 2 impression, but if you're only going to get one NGPC fighting game with Terry Bogard in it, make it KOF R-2.

Dragon Ball: Raging Blast Review

Dragon Ball: Raging Blast is the latest in a long, long series of games that try to take the superpowered fighting action of the popular anime series and adapt it into a compelling fighting game. The results here prove to be mixed. The visuals ably reproduce the lightning-quick speed and tremendous power that make the battles in Dragon Ball exciting. However, the fighting system lacks the depth and nuance to actually capture that excitement, making Raging Blast a game that Dragon Ball fans may enjoy for its breadth of content but one that has little to offer the uninitiated.

The fights in Raging Blast take place in huge environments throughout which characters can dash and soar in any direction. Movement is handled simply, with the left stick hovering you forward, backward, and to the sides, while the shoulder buttons are used to fly up or down. The camera is situated behind your character and generally manages to keep both you and your opponent on screen, except in situations when you are on different vertical planes. In moments like this, you're given a great view of your fighter's head or feet while your opponent is nowhere to be found. It's easy enough to locate your opponent again--the tap of a button will make you immediately rocket toward your rival--but it happens frequently enough to be a nuisance. And while at first glance the environments look as if they go on forever, this illusion is shattered the first time you find yourself impeded by one of the invisible walls that surround them.

The actual fighting offers a fair amount of complexity but very little depth. There's a comprehensive training mode in which Goku familiarizes Gohan with all of the techniques, and it takes some time to progress through it all. You'll practice dash attacks, charge attacks, smash attacks, and numerous other attacks, as well as defense maneuvers. It's quite a bit to take in, though unlike many fighting games, there are no tricky inputs to memorize for any attacks here. Some actions require a precisely timed button press to pull off, but at most, you'll need to push a thumbstick in one direction and tap a button to perform even the most powerful of attacks.

This focus on easily performed, extremely powerful attacks helps make the battles feel tremendous, with characters constantly being sent flying backward through the air with such force that any mountains or buildings in their way get obliterated. But it also prevents the core action from being very involving. Performing these devastating attacks that are the staple of every warrior's arsenal requires "ki," which you build up by landing relatively weak punches and kicks. There's no nuance to these standard attacks; they're all performed with just one button, which you can tap to unleash combos or hold down to charge up a more powerful attack that will send your opponent soaring. But these attacks do so little damage to your opponent that they're not very useful. The only reason to use these weak attacks is to build up your ki, which makes the majority of fights feel overly simplistic and downright predictable. Ki can also be accumulated by holding down on the D pad, leaving you temporarily vulnerable to attack, but this comes with its own set of problems. For a game whose focus should be intense fighting, Raging Blast requires you to spend too much time slowly building your ki power, drawing attention away from the more interesting aspects of combat.

Raging Blast has a wide variety of modes, the most interesting of which is Dragon Battle Collection. Here, you play through many story arcs from the series, such as the Saiyan Saga, the Frieza Saga, and the Androids Saga, as well as a number of what-if scenarios. Those familiar with the lore will likely enjoy reliving some of their favorite moments here, but the unfamiliar will find the storytelling so poor that they'll have a hard time making sense of what's happening, much less finding it interesting. There is some incentive to playing through these sagas because you'll unlock characters, special moves, and items that you can equip to improve a fighter's attack power, defense, health or some other characteristic. The grand total of more than 70 characters seems impressive at first, but that fades fast as you realize that they all feel pretty much the same in action.

In addition to the stories, Raging Blast has a standard assortment of fighting game modes, such as Arcade, Survival, Time Attack, and a Tournament option that allow up to 16 players to fight it out for supremacy. Unfortunately, competing against friends on the same console is tough to enjoy because the screen is split down the middle, which severely limits your view of the action. Online combat is a better option, but it's plagued by a significant percentage of competitors who won't hesitate to disconnect if things aren't going their way.

The visuals capture the look of Dragon Ball with striking success. The characters look as if they've stepped right out of the anime, with the smoothness and speed of the action found in the series faithfully reproduced here. The music is upbeat and catchy but much too repetitive. And while the voice actors bring the same steadfast enthusiasm to this material as they bring to the anime, you'll quickly grow tired of hearing the same few taunts.

The huge assortment of characters, stories, costumes, and other aspects of Dragon Ball lore cannot hide how shallow and uninspired the fighting mechanics are. There is no depth to your actions, making it a slow-paced race to be the first person to build up your ki power, which quickly becomes monotonous. With the wide assortment of deep and varied fighting games already on the market, it?s impossible to ignore the many faults present in this often-dull anime-inspired brawler.