Soul Calibur II Review

By definition, one cannot improve upon perfection. So, considering that 1999's Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast is widely considered to be a flawless fighting game, maybe that explains why Namco didn't take many risks with the sequel, which has finally hit the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. If you played and enjoyed the original Soul Calibur, chances are good that you'll also enjoy the sequel since it's so much like the first game. That also means Soul Calibur II won't impress you as much as its predecessor, since you've seen most of these characters, their weapons, and their moves before, and the available gameplay modes are nothing out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, on its own terms, Soul Calibur II is by all means a great fighting game, and Namco has done a fine job of making each respective console version equally enticing.

For the majority of players, the most significant difference between Soul Calibur II and its predecessor will be cosmetic, though the visuals haven't been overhauled completely. The returning characters all look different and the stages are all new, but many of the animations (even for some of the new characters) are recycled from the previous game, as is the flow and feel of a typical match. As before, gameplay involves four buttons, corresponding to your character's horizontal slash, vertical slash, kick, and guard. Using various combinations of these and the directional pad, you can make your characters unleash dozens of different moves. A number of the characters even have alternate fighting stances, which they can readily switch between to vary up their attacks.

There's a two-tiered rock-paper-scissors system here that's more or less identical to the system that worked so well in Soul Calibur: Low attacks hit high-blocking opponents, mid attacks hit low-blocking opponents, and high attacks tend to beat out mid attacks. Additionally, vertical slashes tend to have priority over horizontal slashes but can be dodged laterally, while horizontal slashes can counter an opponent who's sidestepping too often. Add in guard impact moves, which all characters can use to deflect their foes' attacks, and soul charge moves, which all characters can use to power up their attacks, and you've got a deep, tried-and-true combat system. The gameplay has been tweaked since Soul Calibur, to account for some of the issues that highly experienced players of the previous game picked up on. However, most players won't really notice the different properties of crouching or of lateral movement or things like that. Of further note, the game controls well using the default PS2, Xbox, and GameCube controllers. The PS2 controller is best suited, and the GameCube's directional pad is a little small, but all of these are responsive and more than serviceable with the game.

All of the Soul Calibur cast returns either in form or in spirit. From the samurai Mitsurugi to the undead pirate Cervantes, from the nunchaku-wielding Maxi to the female ninja Taki, from the bizarre Voldo to the aptly named Nightmare, most all the old favorites are intact, each with a smattering of new moves. Some have changed more than others, but for the most part, tactics and combos that worked well in Soul Calibur still work well here. There are a number of new characters in the game, though aside from the exclusive character in each console version of the game, only two characters are completely new: Raphael, a fencer whose feints and ripostes suitably capture the elegance and effectiveness of this fighting style, and Talim, a young girl whose speed and expertise with her twin blades make up for her small stature.

The special-guest characters in each version of the game are well done in their own right and are about as fully realized as the rest of the cast. The PlayStation 2 version gets the Tekken series' grizzled old karate master, Heihachi Mishima. The Xbox version gets Spawn, Todd McFarlane's muscle-bound comic book antihero. And the GameCube version gets none other than Link from The Legend of Zelda. These characters have been heavily promoted and talked about, and though none of them fits in very well with the rest of Soul Calibur II's characters, they each look good, are competitive, and have their own unique fighting styles. Heihachi has all the ferocious kicks and punches that make him a powerhouse in Tekken and looks better than ever before. Spawn has a limited ability to fly and can inflict massive damage with his ax. And Link's got all his classic moves and all his classic weapons, including the boomerang, the bow, and the bombs.

Another character is new to the home versions of Soul Calibur II and is not in the arcade original: Necrid, a Todd McFarlane creation specifically designed for this game. Necrid is surprisingly fast and powerful and fights with a ghostly weapon that mimics the other fighters' techniques. But this hunched-over, bloated action figure of a fighting game character seems like he was ripped out of some other game and thrown in here. Surely, it's great to have as many characters as possible in a fighting game. But there's also something to be said for having a cohesive look and style across all the characters. Each fighter in Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast, though remarkably different, at least looked like he or she belonged in the same game as all the other fighters in the lineup.

At any rate, the exclusive characters represent the biggest difference between the three console versions of Soul Calibur II, and if you're trying to decide on which version to get, you should probably go for the one with the character you'd most like to play as or against. Or if you have a home theater system and an Xbox, then the Xbox version is the way to go, since it features 720p HDTV support and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. The other two versions are no slouches either, though, and natively support surround sound and widescreen progressive scan displays.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up Review

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up, you and some friends pick from a roster of beloved characters and proceed to beat the heck out of each other in a diverse array of arenas. Sound familiar? The similarities between this game and the Super Smash Bros. series are clear, from the fast-paced action to the presentation to the announcer's voice. Yet there are a number of notable differences that set Smash-Up apart. Some are positive, like the more-straightforward combat that make it easier to succeed with a variety of characters. Some, like the not-so-sharp visuals and inconsistent victory conditions, are negative. These rough edges keep Smash-Up from making a legitimate bid for the Smash Bros. crown, but it's still an entertaining brawler in its own right.

Most of the fighters are longtime TMNT standbys, though a few of the unlockable characters will be unfamiliar to lapsed fans. While each character does play differently, their core movesets are fairly similar. You have a basic attack and a strong attack, the latter of which is slower, but has a bigger range and is more powerful. Using either of these attacks while pushing the analog stick in a given direction will activate a different move, so like in Smash Bros., you have a solid array of moves that are very easy to perform. Unlike in Smash Bros., none of the characters have flashy special moves. Though one character's strong attack may involve a katana while another character's involves a gun, the range and power of these attacks aren't drastically different. There are no lightning bolts, and nobody is swallowing anybody else. The moves are similar enough that you can choose any character and still have a reasonable degree of success, but they are also different enough to make each character unique. Combat isn't flashy or diverse, but this makes Smash-Up accessible to Smash Bros. veterans and new brawlers alike.

But just because there aren't crazy special moves doesn't mean the combat isn't engaging. Because the differences between characters aren't as drastic, successful players have to get the most out of their repertoire. Positioning and blocking are as important as striking. You can launch quick attacks from the walls and dodge strikes while jumping, making the air as much a part of the battlefield as the ground. There are also ninja power-ups that you can grab and use, including fire breath, throwing knives, bombs, giant magical claw marks, and your own personal tornado shield. If you don't like the power-up that has appeared, you can hold a button to call up a pointer, which you can then use to change the power-up. In theory this adds an interesting strategic wrinkle to the game, but in practice, it's tough to find a spare moment to point and shoot.

The action is fast-paced and frantic, though you will encounter some rough patches, especially if you're accustomed to playing Smash Bros. Most notably, when you are knocked down, you often stay on the ground unable to move just a bit longer than you'd like. It's not a huge difference, but over the course of the match, you'll undoubtedly be knocked down enough to notice the delay. This can be frustrating at first, and though this frustration wanes as you play more, you'll still have aggravating moments of prone impotence. Smash-Up also gives you a split-second chance to break your opponent's grab, but the analog stick wiggling and Wii Remote waggling required to do so don't seem to register consistently (Wii Remote and Nunchuk, GameCube controller, and Classic controller are supported). On the whole the combat is fun and engaging, but there's nothing particularly exciting or unique about it.

The arenas that you fight in do their part to help spice up the action. Only two are static, enclosed areas. The rest feature hazards like bottomless pits, collapsing structures, or vicious monster crocodiles that can devour you in an instant. One level forces you to traverse a moving train as your opponents uncouple the cars in front of you, though you can easily get caught in a frustrating damage loop if you are left behind in a tunnel. For the most part, these arenas are varied and interesting, though they aren't exactly pretty. When the camera pulls out, it can be tough to judge distances, and the visuals aren't as clean and sharp as they should be. It can be hard to differentiate between characters, especially when there are similarly clad fighters in a match (four green bipedal turtles, for example). To help you spot your character, Smash-Up puts a glowing aura around each fighter. These colored outlines are certainly distinct, but they can also be fairly distracting. Fortunately, you can turn them off and use the initials that appear below each character to guide you, but it's a shame Smash-Up's visuals aren't quite up to speed with the gameplay.

In addition to four-player battles, you can take on a series of solo fights in Arcade mode. This short story arc features some lame cutscenes, but victory allows you to unlock the playable characters you'll encounter there. (Other, stranger characters are unlockable by completing a large number of matches in other modes or by using a cheat code.) You'll play a few minigames throughout your journey, and these are reasonable diversions that allow you to earn shells, which you can then use to unlock bonus items. An amusing shooting gallery lets you shoot shells at targets to unlock figurine parts, and you can also spend your shells to build a trophy that you can wager in online matches. Smash-Up features smooth online play that lets you fight with friends or jump into a random match. There are also various ways to set up local tournaments for up to eight players, and there's a mission mode that presents a long list of different battle scenarios for you to complete. This all adds up to a lot of extra stuff to do and goes a long way toward giving you more bang for your buck.

Smash-Up is best when played against some friends on your couch, but there are some issues in the Battle Royal mode that can mess with your matches. In a number of different match types, the victory conditions are not always consistent. At the end of each match, your match statistics are displayed in four categories: lives left, knockouts, times knocked out, and remaining health. In some Knockout matches, the player who reached the requisite number of KOs (five) lost to a player with only two KOs. In similar matches, the first player to five KOs won. It's unclear whether this is a bug or whether the game is using some undisplayed stats to calculate the winner. And in some Last Man Standing matches, the last man standing came in second. Whatever the reason for these irregularities, you'll find the inconsistent scoring to be baffling at best and aggravating at worst.

Despite these scoring issues and the not-so-great visuals, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up is a fun, engaging brawler. The combat is solid and fast-paced, and though it's not exactly innovative, it's good enough to support some entertaining fights. If you're looking for a new source of Wii-powered beatdowns, Smash-Up fits the bill.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects Review

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, Electronic Arts' new fighting game, has already appeared on the Xbox, PS2, GameCube, and PSP. Next up for the Nemesis treatment is the Nintendo DS, a portable system with very different capabilities from those other four platforms. The DS's touch screen and voice-recognition features present a lot of interesting gameplay opportunities, which, if used correctly, can more than make up for the portable's lack of graphical horsepower and analog control. Alas, that isn't at all the case here. Instead, Marvel Nemesis on the DS makes very poor use of the unique abilities of the hardware, and the unfortunates who decide to rent or buy this game will be stuck with nothing more than a filthy, horribly buggy version of an already middling game.

On the DS, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects' story goes from heavily garbled to completely incomprehensible. There are a few cartoon panels between each mission, but they never consist of more than two sentences of grammatically incorrect text. The basic facts are that The Imperfects, six superpowered thugs in the employ of evil genius Niles Van Roekel, are out to cause trouble in New York City so the boss can get his hands on a heavily guarded suit of alien armor...or something along those lines. In any case, there's ample excuse for Marvel's superheroes, led by crowd favorites Spider-Man, Iron Man, Elektra, and The Thing, to go up against the nasty ol' Imperfects in a series of one-on-one battles. The battles take place in fully destructible environments that are heavily seeded with objects you can turn into convenient missiles or bludgeons, all at the touch of a button.

It's a chore to wring any kind of entertainment out of Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. This is partly because you must play through the game's arcade mode endlessly to unlock content. You only start with two playable characters: Wolverine and The Human Torch. All other content--including characters, concept art, arenas, and alternate costumes--cost "battle points," which you earn by trashing one CPU-controlled opponent after another as fast as you can. Occasionally the game will offer you a chance to wager battle points on an upcoming fight, but you never know when you'll get this opportunity, and you can only bet a maximum of 500 points on a battle, which is a fairly trivial amount. Unlocking Daredevil, for instance, costs 8,000 battle points. It's also possible to wager points during a multiplayer battle.

Marvel Nemesis' gameplay doesn't compare favorably to any of the other versions of the game, let alone any competing games on the Nintendo DS. The controls have gone from simplistic to cretinous. You can toggle auto-aim using the left shoulder button, but there's no reason to ever take it off, because there's no point to free-running around the level to pick up and throw objects. Furthermore, the game's environmental attacks have gone from somewhat overpowered to completely useless. Furthermore, your lock-on function reacts far too slowly to your opponent's movement. If you're in the middle of an attack and your enemy shifts to your left or right, your character won't adjust accordingly, as it takes a heavy fraction of a second for him or her to awkwardly pivot in place to face the right direction again.

The touch screen's primary use is to activate your character's motion and flight powers, which have no real use in this game, even on the multitiered levels. This is because you can fall any distance without suffering any damage, and your opponent will follow you wherever you go. Sometimes one of the characters will fall off a tall building, causing the game to pause for a few seconds before simply resetting the battle on the roof. Usually, all you need to do to win is maneuver the bad guy in to a corner so you can beat him to a pulp using your regular combo attack. You can also use the touch screen to perform your character's single finishing move by tapping in an elementary combo at the end of a match.

It's quite obvious that Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects didn't receive adequate play testing before its release. It's simply riddled with graphical, artificial-intelligence, and hit-detection glitches. Yes, most of the walls and floors are destructible, but they also have a nasty habit of disappearing at odd times so that your character appears to be standing on thin air. The CPU isn't much good at attacking you in any fashion, but every once in a while, CPU opponents will just start attacking a corner of the screen, even if you're standing in the middle of it. At a few points, we were even able to toss an enemy through a solid wall, or out of the screen entirely (the match went another 50 seconds before we won by default).

Marvel Nemesis is not a good-looking game by the standards of the Nintendo DS. Most of the neat lighting tricks from the other versions have been dispensed with, as have a large portion of the character animations. What's left is a blurry hash of strange-looking combat, weak explosions, smoke and particle effects, and bland skeletal environments. Whatever visual ?lan and comic-book styling this game possessed on other platforms is gone. The sound is very mediocre for this type of game, and the effects are perhaps even a little understated. In any case, they're a pretty quotidian collection of beat-'em-up thumps, bashes, and breaking glass.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects shouldn't have been made for the Nintendo DS. The system doesn't have the capabilities to display the other versions' main strengths, which lie in their graphics and online multiplayer modes. Add this to the fact that this game is clearly an unfinished product (that still costs $35), and you've got a real lemon on your hands. Don't buy, rent, or otherwise play this game. You'll regret it.

The King of Fighters NeoWave Review

Home to many great fighting games and shoot-'em-ups, SNK's everlasting NeoGeo finally seemed to retire a few years ago when SNK Playmore made the decision to switch over to the Atomiswave, a similarly designed but technically more powerful system. So what was the company's first order of business now that the time had come for a fresh, new beginning? Why, porting over one of its popular fighting games, of course. Enter The King of Fighters NeoWave, a spin-off of SNK's best-known fighting franchise. Based on The King of Fighters 2002 but featuring marginally improved graphics and various gameplay tweaks, NeoWave frankly doesn't look (let alone play) much different from a typical KOF installment. This budget-priced Xbox Live-enabled fighter still packs some good stuff for hardcore fans, but the touched-up paint job doesn't make this feel like a whole new game. In fact, in some ways it feels like a step backward from The King of Fighters 2002.

KOF NeoWave features the traditional three-on-three team battles that the King of Fighters series is known for. You can't change fighters in the middle of a round, so your fighter keeps going either until he or she is defeated, or until the other team of three gets wiped out. So even though you choose three characters going into the standard game mode, the battles are all strictly one-on-one. The mechanics of gameplay are very similar to previous KOF installments, especially 2002, which means you'll once again be attempting to string together various punches and kicks with special moves for damage-dealing combos, while occasionally busting out with super moves and other tricks. The roster contains three-dozen different fighters, including most of the popular favorites, plus three different fighting modes. It's a lot of variety, but at the same time, it's mostly well-worn, familiar territory. If you've already played KOF 2002 and moved on, NeoWave won't do much to draw you back in, and probably isn't worth your while.

That's not to dismiss the quality of the underlying action. More than a decade of tuning and refining has informed this King of Fighters installment, which contains a diverse and interesting cast of fighters, and plenty of room for individualized tactics and strategy. The fighting is fast and intense, especially if you take it online. When playing online, KOF NeoWave behaves just fine (unlike the Xbox version of King of Fighters 2002 released last year). Matches are relatively lag-free and it's possible to jump straight into a rematch. You can limit the roster to exclude hidden characters to keep things fair, and you can even try to organize or participate in player-made tournaments. Since the game is also available in Japan, you can look forward to some international competition, though not a lot. Nevertheless, getting to play online with other King of Fighters fans is probably the game's biggest attraction.

What's truly new in KOF NeoWave? Not much, really. The character graphics are all recycled, the soundtrack is mostly forgettable, and a lot of the audio is muffled and indistinct. There's still a lot of charm and personality on display in the different fighters, but this isn't a good presentation by today's standards. The character roster has been tweaked since 2002 to include a few old favorites who didn't originally make the cut, like Shingo and King. The three different fighting modes (super cancel, guard break, and max2) influence your character's moves and abilities, as well as how often you can use your most powerful techniques, though systems like this have been a part of 2D fighting games for years. The conventional four-button KOF control scheme (for light and strong punches and kicks) gains one more button this time around for what's called "heat mode," which causes your character to flash red and get stronger, though at the expense of health. It's not that meaningful of an addition. The game also sports some fully 3D backgrounds and nice-looking portraits for all the fighters. There are a few alternate modes of play, like an "endless" survival mode, and numerous graphical options you can tweak to slightly adjust how the action looks on your screen, but this isn't major stuff.

Other than that, The King of Fighters NeoWave feels rushed. The onscreen interface looks ugly, especially the life meters. There's no text dialogue in between matches, which might not seem like a big deal, but it's a glaring omission--in past installments, fighters' personalities tended to come across in the between-battle dialogue. The last boss isn't an original character, but rather a recycled hidden fighter from a much older game. Worst of all, there are brief but painfully noticeable loading times between rounds, interrupting the fast pace of the action. One might reasonably expect the Atomiswave hardware to improve on what the NeoGeo was capable of, but whatever improvements are on display in this game are negated by new problems. The translation to the Xbox didn't seem to do much to compensate, either.

In the end, KOF NeoWave is a decent 2D fighting game that's recommendable only to those looking for more King of Fighters, for better and for worse. It's not a substantial or impressive upgrade for the series, but if you're still a fan, chances are you enjoy picking apart each new installment, noting subtle differences to moves and abilities, comparing additions and omissions against past versions, and so on. And being able to play online against other fans is nice, too.

Capcom Fighting Evolution Review

Ever wondered who would win in a match between Street Fighter III's fearsome near-naked muscleman, Urien, and DarkStalkers' frisky near-naked cat girl, Felicia? No? At any rate, the answer to this and many other obscure fighting-game crossover-match questions may be found in Capcom Fighting Evolution. This is a competent product, offering a fair variety of characters and the responsive controls you'd expect from a Capcom fighting game. But it also feels like a relic, with its bare-bones set of options and decided lack of distinguishing features. The game is clearly best suited for hardcore fans of Capcom's fighting games, who might enjoy exploring some of the nuances here but probably won't find much reason to keep coming back. At least this version offers online play through Xbox Live to make up for the fact that it's hitting shelves half a year later than the otherwise identical PS2 version.

Capcom Fighting Evolution is essentially a typical one-on-one 2D fighting game, in which you compete with either another player or a computer-controlled opponent in best-of-three-round martial art matches. Purists will appreciate that it features the classic Street Fighter-style six-button control scheme. The game's main twist is that, instead of choosing just one fighter per match, you choose two. This implies some sort of a tag-team fighting system, as in Capcom's "Versus" games, but Capcom Fighting Evolution isn't that complex. You pick two characters only, so you can optionally alternate characters between rounds. So, for example, you might form a team consisting of Zangief the pro wrestler and Demitri the vampire, reserving the latter for use against pesky fireball throwers like Ryu, while letting the former and his signature spinning pile driver do most of the work. Since you decide which character to use in each round, you don't even have to use both of your selected fighters. As such, Capcom Fighting Evolution's system is rather simple, but nonetheless marginally different from that of most other fighting games, which makes it interesting.

In recent years, some of Capcom's fighting games have asked you to choose between some esoteric fighting systems in addition to choosing your characters. Capcom Fighting Evolution also features different systems, but these are dependent on the characters you choose and the games from which they come. This is the game's other twist. For example, if you choose Street Fighter III's buffed-up brawler, Alex, you'll be able to parry incoming attacks by tapping forward on the D pad at the last possible instant, since all Street Fighter III characters could parry in this fashion. Or, if you play as Street Fighter Alpha's ninjutsu master, Guy, you'll be able to use alpha counters to immediately follow up a blocked attack with another strike.

These different fighting systems also govern the respective characters' supermoves. Some types of characters can use their supermoves more quickly, while other characters' supers are more powerful, and stuff like that. There's not that drastic of a difference from one fighting system to the next, but the subtle differences between them do give the game some depth. It helps to some extent that many of the fighters have been at least slightly tweaked since you last saw them. For instance, the Street Fighter III characters have access to multiple supermoves during a match, whereas in all previous versions of Street Fighter III, you were forced to choose a single supermove prior to each match. Nevertheless, the balance is still pretty suspect, as there seems to be no one in this game that a good Ryu or Zangief couldn't thrash.

The roster includes about two dozen different characters, mostly hailing from five different Capcom fighting games, including Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter III, DarkStalkers, and the obscure Red Earth, also known as Warzard. Capcom Fighting Evolution could have distinguished itself by throwing together more than just a handful of characters from each game, but it failed to take advantage of this opportunity. As a result, if you're a Capcom fan, you'll instantly be disappointed by the "sampler" selections from each game, since some, if not most, of your personal favorite fighters inevitably didn't make the cut.

The cast itself is a rather strange one. You have your obvious inclusions like Ryu and Guile, but you also have some strange picks like DarkStalkers' wacky mummy, Anakaris, and Street Fighter Alpha's elegantly dressed Rose. There's also Ingrid, an original character who looks a lot like Street Fighter Alpha's schoolgirls, Sakura and Karin. The entire cast of Red Earth sticks out most of all, especially Hauzer, a huge screen-filling dinosaur. The Red Earth characters don't really fit in with the game's assorted martial artists, but they certainly look good, since Red Earth was Capcom's first game using the technology that subsequently powered the much-better-known Street Fighter III. Then again, these smoothly animated characters clash significantly with the relatively crude-looking cast from Street Fighter Alpha. Since almost all the character artwork here (as well as the voice work) is recycled from one old fighting game or another, Capcom Fighting Evolution feels like a mishmash of different, old fighting games. That's exactly what it is, in fact.

Capcom Fighting Evolution has a bare minimum of modes of play. There's an arcade mode, a versus mode for two players, a training mode for practicing your moves, Xbox Live mode, and that's it. You can adjust some basic options and unlock some hidden characters and other extras by repeatedly finishing the arcade mode, but there's no survival mode or color-edit mode, or any of the other stuff now found in most 2D fighting games. Xbox Live support works as you'd expect, letting you tweak a small number of different options when searching for matches, and conveniently offering you an at-a-glance look at how many matches are currently available (don't expect a lot of competition online). Of course, relatively lag-free online fighting such as this is no longer inherently novel as it once was, since several superior Live-enabled fighting games have long since been available at a low price. Capcom Fighting Evolution at least features some original background artwork, most of which is brimming with cameo appearances by many characters you'll wish were actually playable. Furthermore, the game includes some nicely done comic book-style ending sequences for all its characters. So, as pure fan service to Capcom's loyalists, Capcom Fighting Evolution isn't bad. However, it's also got a lame announcer and a new soundtrack consisting of some forgettable rock music.

Five years ago, Capcom Fighting Evolution probably would have been a great game, especially with online play thrown in. It does a decent job of throwing together a bunch of different characters into the mix, and letting them take advantage of their respective games' specific play mechanics. It also plays fine and looks good. At the same time, Capcom Fighting Evolution is the umpteenth game to recycle these same graphics, sounds, and mechanics, so unless you're dying to experience some of the strange matchups that are possible here, you could just as well go back to playing whichever games all these fighters hailed from.

Legend of the Dragon Review

Legend of the Dragon is a fighting game from Game Factory that's based on a cartoon that currently airs on Toon Disney as part of its Jetix programming block. It's about a pair of 15-year-old twins, Ang and Ling, who are on opposite sides of a martial-arts-themed conflict involving humans that can transform into beastlike creatures. The fighting in this game is uniformly terrible, giving you the feeling that the product was constructed as a licensing tie-in first and a game second, but the ugly graphics and lack of character speech mean that this probably won't do much for fans of the show either, making it a failure from every angle.

The fighting is stripped down, with only one punch and one kick button and very basic combos that string those two attacks together. While you can push in a direction to execute different punches and kicks, you don't have any special moves in your human form. As in most modern fighting games, as you fight, a meter fills up with energy. Once it crosses a certain threshold, you can transform into your character's guardian form. For the main characters, the forms are largely human still, just armored. Others turn into decidedly snakelike, or ratlike, people, and so on down the line. Your basic abilities don't change when you're transformed--you can still attack, and the game still plays like a bad 2D fighter with 3D ring movement buttons. But you can also use your power meter when transformed to execute three different special attacks that make the game feel like it's trying to ape the Dragon Ball Z Budokai series. One attack launches a DBZ-like energy beam at your opponent, and at that point, a button-mashing or controller-waving frenzy breaks out, which either causes more damage or nullifies the attack, depending on which player can mash faster. Another special attack has the player enter six button presses or controller motions at random. If the opposing player can memorize the string and enter part of it, that player will block the incoming attack. The third attack launches a series of fireballs in a rhythmic fashion, and the defending player can dodge these with well-timed button presses or controller waves. Unfortunately, these attacks are identical for every fighter in the game.

In addition to a stock of standard fighting modes, like survival and practice, there's a quest mode, where you move Ang or Ling around a map screen as though it were some kind of board game. There are temples at several spots on the map, and at each temple, there's a challenge for you to complete. The game tries to get clever here and change things up by giving you stipulations for each fight, like in Soul Calibur's quest mode. So some fights have time restrictions, others can be won only with specific attacks, and some fighters are only susceptible to combos. If any part of the fighting were even remotely enjoyable, this might provide an interesting change of pace. But it only manages to frustrate, because it's very easy to knock opponents out of the ring accidentally, which will lose the fight for you if you needed to do something else to your foe.

Legend of the Dragon is available on both the PlayStation 2 and the Wii. The PS2 version has very standard controls, with buttons for blocking and throwing. The Wii setup uses the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk and is very similar to the PS2 controls, though on the Wii you'll block by pushing down on the D pad, and you'll throw by pressing down on the D pad and waving the remote toward your opponent. All of the special attacks require some form of Remote movement, and none of them feel precise. Graphically, the two games are very similar--both of them have bland visuals, with a generic cel-shaded look and weak animation that makes all the characters look pretty bad. The backgrounds are also ugly and plain. Because the game is based on an animated series, you'd hope for some form of voice acting, but other than the typical fighting game grunts and a few very short voice clips here and there, it plods on in silence, using text to convey the quest mode's nonstory.

Because of the game's dull fighting system that doesn't play well against the computer-controlled opponents or against a live human being, it seems almost impossible to have fun with Legend of the Dragon. When you factor in the total lack of detail in the attempt to mimic the cartoon's look and feel, you're left with a game that even diehard fans of the relatively obscure cartoon will probably hate. Do yourself a favor and keep your distance.

Fight Club Review

Given the antimaterialist undertones of the 1999 movie Fight Club, it seems a little strange that it has been spun off into a video game, especially this long after the fact. Granted, Fight Club is a modern classic, and its surprising story, dark humor, and graphic depiction of raw fistfights still hit home today just as strongly as ever. A Fight Club game doesn't necessarily seem like that great of an idea to begin with, but a fighting game based on the movie at least basically seems to make sense. Such a game would hopefully capture the sheer intensity and brutality of the movie's battles between men fed up with a stifling society who are looking for a pure, primal release of all their emotions and frustrations. Unfortunately, Fight Club the game--in stark contrast to publisher Vivendi Universal's far more successful movie-to-game efforts earlier this year--is a resounding failure. Unless you're a masochistic Fight Club fan looking to purposely have your sensibilities offended, then you'd be well advised to stay far away from this game.

Want proof? When you finish Fight Club's story mode--which is a series of mind-numbingly easy and repetitive battles punctuated by poorly prerendered images overlaid with terrible voice-over that is rife with pointless swearing--and which has the audacity to try to tie in with the events of the film, you unlock Limp Bizkit front man Fred Durst as a playable character. His distinctively harsh rap-rock vocals, which are completely incongruous with the Dust Brothers' electronic music featured in the movie (and some parts of the game), are also used to quickly establish (in the opening cutscene) that this game isn't going to try to do a good job of being faithful to the spirit of the movie.

To be fair, much like how the main character(s) of Fight Club yearned to fight such figureheads as Mahatma Gandhi, William Shatner, and Abraham Lincoln, it's possible that Fight Club fans might appreciate the idea of seeing Durst get the snot beaten out of him. Unfortunately, they won't get much satisfaction out of the actual process here, because Fight Club is one of the basest fighting games in years. While the game includes multiple characters from the movie (as well as some original concoctions), they all fall into one of three categories: brawler, martial artist, or grappler. And these three different fighting styles aren't that different from each other, either. Characters all rely on basic strings of punches and kicks, and the occasional throw, to do damage. There is a distinctly limited number of moves per character, and a lack of depth that's immediately apparent in the gameplay. You could probably whip through the game's story and arcade modes just by mashing on the punch buttons without even looking at the screen.

The game's not horribly broken--it's just bad. There are a few early moments in which Fight Club shows a hint of promise. Some of the moves look painful when they connect, such as head-butts that cause both the victim and the assailant to reel backward in pain (one with a hurt forehead, the other with an apparently broken nose). Other times, blood splashes all over the screen, an effect that's rather shocking at first, but soon becomes repetitive and stale. Matches also sometimes end with a slow-motion finisher, such as when one fighter breaks his opponent's arm at the elbow. These moves do look nasty, but there are a very small number of them, so their impact quickly dissipates. And, as mentioned, these sorts of moves are the exception. Much of the animation in Fight Club looks stilted and weak, resulting in battles that really look nothing like the savage fistfights from the movie. The game's fighters do bear the unassuming look of the movie's average Joes (notwithstanding Meat Loaf's character, Bob; incidentally, none of the movie stars' likenesses can be found here). Also, the game's fighting arenas are lifted directly from scenes from the movie. But this window dressing doesn't help matters much.

In addition to standard arcade, versus, and survival modes, Fight Club features online play and a create-a-fighter option. These normally desirable features are basically squandered on this game, since no matter who you play and which character you choose, you're unlikely to derive any sort of meaningful satisfaction from all the repetitive, simplistic combat. These features are functional but also pretty threadbare, though that's to be expected. For what it's worth, the game shows another inkling of a good idea with its option to let you play either normal or "hardcore" versus matches, in which your created fighter stands a chance of being forced into early retirement if he suffers too many bone-crushing injuries. If things are looking bad, you can tap out of a match to end it early to avoid this type of fate, or you could simply not play Fight Club, which has the same effect. Also, the Xbox version of Fight Club already sports some downloadable content, including an additional fighter who's not noticeably different from any of the other fighters in the game, and some additional music. Again, this stuff doesn't do anything to address the game's fundamental flaws. Apart from the downloadable content, the Xbox version looks somewhat sharper and cleaner than the PS2 version, and the between-match loading times are better. But for the most part, the two versions are very similar.

Fight Club's graphics are the best thing about the game, but don't take that to mean this is a good-looking game, either. It looks decent. Some of the lighting is nice, as you can clearly see the fighters' expressions and how their faces get bruised and bloodied as a match wears on. The game also maintains a good frame rate, particularly on the Xbox. On the other hand, as mentioned, the animation is stiff and awkward. Also, the characters are strangely drawn and proportioned, and the fighting arenas are flat and sparsely populated. The game's menu system, which flies you around the movie's dilapidated building on Paper Street, is a nice touch, but the actual graphics during the fights are pretty hit-and-miss. The same can be said of the sound in Fight Club, which, in many cases, is simply missing. The fights sound strangely subdued, as only the occasional punch, kick, or bone-snapping effect, or groan from one of the fighters, can be heard. When a fighter wins a match, you'll see him verbally taunt his opponent, but you'll hear nothing at all. The game lifts a few memorable pieces of music from the Fight Club soundtrack, but these stick out like a sore thumb next to the pale imitations that are used in other cases.

If you ignore the fact that Fight Club ties into the movie (and novel) that bears its namesake, and consider it purely on its merits as a game, what you're left with is an undercooked fighting game that's far worse than fighting games from more than 10 years ago, and not much better looking. And when you also consider the game's botched attempts at including some tie-ins with the movie, the results look even worse.

Mortal Kombat: Deception Review

The latest in Midway's influential and long-running fighting game series, Mortal Kombat: Deception, picks up where 2002's Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance left off by featuring lots of new and returning fighters, a variety of surprising new modes of play, and, perhaps best of all, the ability to play online. The strangest part about Deception is how it includes several completely off-the-wall modes, the likes of which you'd never expect from a fighting game. These include the single-player konquest mode, which is a story-driven adventure; puzzle kombat, a competitive Tetris-style puzzle game that's an unabashed homage to Capcom's Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo; and chess kombat, which is inspired by the classic computer game Archon. The konquest mode is disappointingly bland, while these other two modes are at least amusing. However, the core one-on-one fighting action--whether you play it offline or online--is easily the best part of the game. Like its predecessor, the fighting in Mortal Kombat: Deception is gory, intense, and quite complex, meaning it captures much of what's made MK an institution among fighting games.

The fighting system in Deception hasn't changed much from that of Deadly Alliance. Once again, the main twist that distinguishes this game from other 3D fighting games is that each character may freely switch between three different martial arts styles during battle--one of which is always a weapon-based style of some sort. Characters each possess a handful of unique special moves, as well as a bunch of different chain combos, some of which involve switching between different martial arts styles in midcombo. The sheer variety of different martial arts featured in MK: Deception is quite impressive, and the overall look and feel of the action is clearly inspired by kung fu movies--to good effect. Whereas many fighting games take their cues from anime and aim for action that looks more stylish than downright painful, MK: Deception goes for the hard-hitting staccato rhythms of Hong Kong action cinema and doesn't skimp on sheer graphic violence. The results don't always look perfectly fluid or natural--especially since many of the characters actually look rather stiff--but the fighting in MK: Deception nevertheless features a ton of painful-looking moves that cause the opponent on the receiving end to reel backwards, oftentimes gushing blood. The fighting action is ridiculously over-the-top, and, as a result, it's actually often quite funny.

There's a good, responsive feel to the action, and there's decent variety within the roster of selectable characters. In MK tradition, the fighters here aren't drastically different from one another. Though their special moves and combos are unique, it's not difficult to learn how to play as the different characters once you've grasped the basic game mechanics. A dozen fighters are initially available, and a dozen more are silhouetted on the character select screen, practically taunting you to unlock them. The typical match unfolds as your average best-two-out-of-three-rounds fighting game battle, but MK: Deception does have a few twists. For one thing, it's now possible to execute combo breakers (in a nod to the fighting game Killer Instinct) that let you instantly disrupt the opponent when you're on the receiving end of a string of attacks. Combo breakers are actually really easy to perform, but the catch is that you can use these only a few times during a match, and they cause no damage to the opponent. So they introduce a welcome bit of strategy to a match. Should you use your breakers right away or try to save them to turn the tables at the end of a match? MK: Deception makes a few other tweaks to Deadly Alliance's gameplay, such as eliminating the powerful impaling moves from that game and adding (back) a whole bunch of uppercut attacks--MK standbys that seemed noticeably absent from Deadly Alliance. Deception also adds a fairly useless graphical threat indicator, which (among other things) flashes red when you're susceptible to taking extra damage from a counterattack. In practice, it's just not possible to glance at this small row of flashing lights while concentrating on match action.

A much more noticeable, and welcome, addition is in how most of the battle arenas in MK: Deception feature death traps that may instantly end a round, either for a satisfying finish or a surprise comeback. For example, Mortal Kombat's classic "pit" stage returns (and MKII's acid-filled "dead pool" level is in here too), but this time, you don't need to wait until the end of a match to knock your enemy onto the spikes below. Now, if you just get him or her near the edge of the elevated platform, you can uppercut the poor sap to certain death. Should you die in this fashion, you only lose the round and not the match, which is something that's inexplicable but makes obvious sense from a gameplay standpoint. It's a like a much messier version of Virtua Fighter's ring-outs.

Most of the death traps are tucked away into the recesses of a level and sometimes require you to smash your opponent (or get smashed yourself) through a lower level before the deadly portions of it are exposed. These dangerous areas are also conveniently indicated by a red border, so you'll know when you're in a troublesome spot. A few of the levels--including one in which the edge of the level keeps collapsing, making it more and more likely that someone ends up falling--are definitely a little too prone to deaths-by-death trap. But the fact that these elements of the stages make you have to be mindful of where you're fighting mostly just help to make the combat more interesting. Plus, the death trap-related fatalities are pretty entertaining. So death traps actually turn out to be a much more fun addition to the game than you might expect. However, if you really don't like them, for some reason, you can disable death traps in the game both in offline and online play.

Of course, this wouldn't be Mortal Kombat without a whole bunch of fatalities, and, fortunately, Deception's got plenty of them.