Dom Robinson reviews

Price: £44.99 Players: 1-2 You could say that the main addition for Virtua Fighter 4 is a graphical overhaul - and you wouldn't be far wrong, but that didn't stop the release of Dead or Alive 3 appearing on the Xbox. There are four main contenders to the 3D kicking and punching crowd. I'm more au fait for straight-forward fighting with the Virtua Fighter crowd and, to add weapons, with the Soul Calibur lot, but I'm less into the Tekkens and Dead or Alives of the gaming world. The characters you can play with here include eleven from the old school and two newbies, the full line-up appearing as: black bombshell Vanessa, muscular Akira, blonde feisty Sarah, Chinese girl Pai, spiky-haired Jacky, old man Shun, Salvador Dali-esque Lau, wrestler Wolf, floppy-haired Lion, big bastard Jeffry, dainty Aoi, Ju-Jutsu specialist Kage and Kung-Fu beginner Lei.

In Arcade mode, you have infinite chances to slug it out with each of your opponents, including a carbon copy of yourself, before having a final single fight with the metallic Dural; "VS" is a one-on-one standard two-player game and Kumite makes you fight your way through a continuous series of opponents with a minimum of three rounds per match. Other options allow you to create new players with different A.I., train them, spar with them and view replays to give advice to your A.I. fighter. Upon making any selection, the menu has a gorgeous water effect applied to it, such that any movement on the menu is like dropping a pebble in a lake, allowing you to watch the ripples fan out.

It's a brilliant looking game with only the usual jaggies letting it down from time to time, that's if you have time to notice them. On the plus side, the characters move like lightning, it's superb the way your footprints in sand or snow are recorded accurately and it seems to avoid the problem I had with Dead or Alive 3 when you got someone up against a wall and knocked them down, which resulted in them pushing you away as they laid down like a stiff. The sound's very good too, but nothing you don't expect. A DTS soundtrack should be essential for a fighting game, but most games manufacturers don't seem to bother with this, which is a shame.

The game is a joy to play, like Soul Calibur, but does take a little getting used to if you're not used to the moves. Once learned, they make more sense than a couple of beat-em-ups I mentioned earlier in this review. It was also fun to see the time when I kicked Lau out of the ring and boy did he look pissed off, trying to stand up as if exceedingly embarassed! This is the best new fighting game to play at the moment, but it no doubt will be beaten by the master later in the year when Soul Calibur 2 is released, hopefully with another mode similar to 'Edge Master'.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.