Gamertell

Product: Virtual Fighter 5 Online for Xbox 360
Price: $59.99
Rating: 9.0/10
Pros: Stunning visuals, excellent gameplay, strong single player mode, online play with minimal lag.
Cons: Voice acting needs work, menus are uninspiring and even cumbersome online, fighting rings are lackluster.
Overall: Great, highly addictive fighting game with good online playability and lasting value.

Anyone even remotely interested in fighting games needs to check this game out. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of the genre, but I will have to admit that this game kept me up late into the evening telling myself I’d play just until I ranked up one more time or extended my winning streak just a few more places. This game is very addictive for no small reason due to its excellent gameplay. The Virtual Fighter series is well known for its mechanics and Virtual Fighter 5 serves up another healthy dose of tight and intuitive butt-kicking fun.

The single-player version of the game is very well put together in terms of options, customization and gameplay modes, though the menus and navigation in the game overall are one of the more frustrating aspects of the game. Virtual Fighter 5 gives you several off line options including a standard versus and training modes, an arcade style mode and a quest mode. The arcade mode is done in the typical style where you must battle increasingly difficult enemies, who are seemingly picked at random from the 14 available players. The single-player addiction comes in the form of the Quest Mode. The menus here leave something to desire but you have the option of choosing different locations that are set up as arcades where you can go in and pick a fight with someone else playing on one of the machines.

Each arcade has three machines where you pick a fight and keep playing until you are beaten, just like if you were to play a fighting game in a real-world arcade. As you win battles, your winning streak is recorded and each victory boosts your ranking according to the difficulty of your opponent. In addition, some battles mix things up a bit by staking an item on the fight. If you win the fight you basically unlock items such as different clothing, cash or orbs. This is also where I found myself staying up late at night trying to unlock one more item.

All of your favorite characters are back for another round in this installment of the series. Each of the 17 playable characters has a unique fighting style and possible combos. For example, Jacky Bryant has a list of kick combinations in the mid power range. He is quick and strong with a very straight forward fighting style. Some of the moves up his sleeve include a quick knee kick combo (forward + kick) and series of quick punches followed by a knockdown kick (p,p,forward + p, k). And in contrast to him you have big, powerful characters including Wolf Hawkfield and Jeffry McWild who concentrated on short, bone crunching combos and throws or swift, small characters like Eileen and Vanessa Lewis who can easily string together three or four hit combos on light to mid power. There really is a player with a fighting style for everyone. If you like to plan out your attack and like a few well timed moves to dish out serious damage then you can go with the heavyweights, or if you’re quick fingered and like to pummel your opponent with a barrage of blows that wear them down then go with one of the more agile players.

Another strength of the game is the online feature through Xbox Live. In the past fighting games were plagued by serious lag when played online to the point that they weren’t fun to play. Virtual Fighter 5 Online has improved by leaps and bounds in this area though a lot of it depends on the reliability of your connection, standard cable on DSL access should get you battling online with minimal lag. There is nothing like going head-to-head with a real, live, thinking human who, just like you, has figured out all of the little tricks in the system as eagerly desires to use them against you.

Design – 8.0/10
Overall design is excellent in terms of gameplay and the remarkably responsive and intuitive fighting system. The inclusion of an addictive single-player quest mode and killer online play are really strong attributes of the games design. Only things that could have been better were menu look and navigation, voice overs (some of the poorly done one-liners and mouth animation start to grate on you after a while) and ring interaction. The rings are breakable but don’t seem to be up to the current state of the art. Otherwise, the pros highly outweigh the cons.

Features – 9.0/10
Solid online play is a super inclusion. Also, addictive quest mode and the addition of training and arcade modes round this title out nicely. Ranking system, costume customization and collectibles will keep you playing for hours on end. Online system could be better streamlined. What would be a glorious online experience is somewhat stifled by the poorly designed menu and options system. For example, I find it particularly frustrating when I hook up with a friend, go at it a few rounds and then when it’s done, I get kicked back out to the main search screen. The option to stick together with a friend or two and play a few games in a row without going through the hassle of finding them again just is not there. Fortunately though, time spent actually fighting will quickly make you forget these minor hassles.

Performance – 9.5/10
Online play is smooth as silk and single-player and versus action is seamless. Loading times are minimal but noticeable. The enemy AI is very good and varies accordingly depending on which arcade you choose to play in.

Different arcades are known to attract enemy AI of different skill levels. If you are an amateur to fighting games like me you can still have a good time sticking to the arcades that attract the beginner or intermediate enemies. After fighting for a while you will also be invited to fight in various tournaments which also vary in difficultly, and winning the official ones will unlock achievements.

Overall – 9.0/10
Overall, this game is outstanding. It is a complete work and finely polished. There were no bugs or strange nuances that locked up or slowed my console as in other graphic intense games I played on Xbox 360. If you are even vaguely interested in fighting games this little gem should be in your collection. So go grab a copy and get started practicing those combos. You’ll need them to be second nature when you fight online.

Editors Note: The categories were weighted in the following manner to reflect the importance of some features over others (in our humble opinion). Design 30%, Features 40%, and Performance 30%.

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