Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus (Xbox)

I bought this earlier this year and paid a tenner for it and it's OK.

Not the best game we have, but not the worst either.

Well worth the tenner and at that it was a good buy, but it is hard to say if we'd have paid much more.

A good addition to your collection if you can get it at a good price.

***

With only 12 character to choose from.. its just as well that the vast majority are pretty cool to play. The usual fighting game archytypes are all here.. wise old chinese dood.. check. Bruce Lee avenger type.. check. Large wrestler type.. check. Well endowed high kicking females.. check check check!

Via the somewhat plain looking menu interface, you can choose to play in Quest (Story), Survival, Verses, Team Battle, Tournament or training mode. More multiplayer modes would have been nice.. like a tag team mode.. something to spice things up a little.. but alas Tao Feng is very much a 'what you see is what you get' traditional fighter.

Graphics and sound are both excellent, with highly detailed, superbly animated characters and some genuinely interesting backdrops. There are plenty of innovations too, such as the visible cuts and bruises that appear on you character throughout a match. Some backdrops have scenery that will actually hurt a character (like hot coals in a fireplace) so you never feel as though your fighting in a static backdrop. Sometimes the animation isn't as fluid as perhaps it should be, and the routines handling camera angles could do with a bit of work, but on the whole its looks fantastic. Every time they lose a round a character is seen picking themselves up of the ground, dusting themselves down, and girding themselves for more action.. a small touch admittedly but it really gives a feeling that the characters are giving it their all.. a far cry from the bloodless niceness of DOA3.

The control system is nicely intuitive, and play is generally more strategic than merely 'mashing buttons' (although that does work to a degree). Its relatively easy to take advantage of special attacks off walls and poles.. to spice things up a little, theres also some magical attacks and the possibility of debilitating limb damage occuring if you block too many blows.

After playing Tao Feng for a short while you suddenly get an overwhelming sense of Deja-Vu. The OTT cheesy characters.. the slightly dodgey (stylistically, not technically) poses.. the magical attacks.. the large blood droplets.. using the back button to block.. erm.. Mortal Combat anyone? The only things missing are the fatalities and a few extra arms on one of the female characters.

Overall, Tao Feng is great fun in either single or two-player modes.. and offers up a good alternative to Japanese manga styled fighting games. Its longevity is perhaps limited mostly by the lack of characters.. we're simply used to having more choice these days. In something as simple as a fighting game it also helps to have plenty of unlockable stuff to keep you playing. Unfortunately TF has only one extra arena and one extra unlockable character. An excellent game to rent and possibly a good purchase if you like your fighting games gorey and wierd.