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| Virtua Fighter 5 |
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| Fighting |
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| SEGA |
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| SEGA |
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Virtua Fighter 5 is the next instalment in Sega’s critically acclaimed series and is soon to be kicking and punching its way to an Xbox 360 near you. All the usual characters make a return in Virtua Fighter 5 and there are also two new characters; the first being El Blaze who is a lucha-libre wrestler and the second is the always delightful or perhaps somewhat completely bananas, Eileen.
I’ve been looking forward to Virtua Fighter 5 for some time now and as the game is already released on Sony’s PS3 console I figured I may as well put the game through its paces before the Xbox 360 version is released. After playing it though, I find my personal expectations for the game were a bit too high. I’ve always been into the Tekken and Dead or Alive series amongst others and so with my experience with those games and then jumping ship to Virtua Fighter – it is certainly something very different, Virtua Fighter 5 actually requires some skill instead of button bashing. VF5 is some what overwhelming at first as I’m sure it will be for all who are trying the VF series out for the first time.
The thing that makes VF5 stand out from the likes of Tekken and Dead or Alive is its somewhat complex combat system, don’t expect to just be able to jump into the Arcade or Quest modes on default settings and start stringing slick combos together like a pro – it just isn’t going to happen without some practise unless you’ve had previous experience with the Virtua Fighter series.After I learnt the hard way I then manoeuvred my way over to the games Do Jo mode which essentially gives you a dummy opponent to beat the crap out of all whilst trying to master some combos… still even doing some of the latter combos proved somewhat frustrating but the more you play the more you will learn to respond effectively. I found the method of learning some easy combos and knocking the games difficulty down to help pretty considerably… the more you play and improve your skills then obviously turning the difficulty back up and learning some of the tougher combos should soon pay off.
The games most impressive feat is its lush graphical presentation with backgrounds and scenery that just bring a sense of life to the action with ultra hi-res polished player models; there really are some nice visual effects that go along with this including water effects,reflections etc which all react to the players movement in the location – all have been done before, but they have never looked any better than they do in Virtua Fighter 5.
Sound wise things are not as good as they certainly could be with many of the voice-overs oozing cheesy-ness, but then this is typical of some fighting games so it can perhaps be excused? Sound effects wise it serves its purpose very well though the actual soundtrack is certainly nothing special, though for us Xbox 360 owners we can at least change this by playing our own soundtracks from the Xbox Guide.
There are several modes including a Customize option which allows you to edit your characters ring name and use unlocked items as well as purchase new items such as clothing and accessories by winning matches to earn money as well as increase your overall in-game rank. Other modes of play include Arcade and the one I’m certain most people will be spending their time in and that is the Quest mode, this essentially allows you to enter various arcades and compete against a variety of AI opponents with varying difficulty. The other mode of interest is VF.TV which to be honest is poor, the main point of this is supposed to be for you to save your replays from your matches and then view them here, the only problem is you can only save your replays in the VS game mode which means there are two local players needed as there is no online multiplayer.
Whilst I have a new found respect for the games combat system there are still some nagging issues which really bother me for a fighting game and the main one is the fact that there is no online multiplayer. Fighting games are all about multiplayer as far as I am concerned, while playing against an AI opponent is expected in all fighting games the one thing every gamer expects from a fighting game these days is online multiplayer, especially seeing as this is supposed to be the next generation, but sadly Virtua Fighter 5 has no online multiplayer. Whilst I’m sure the decision to not include this feature was due to probable latency issues – it still seems lazy to not have the feature there even if it does suffer from some latency issues. Still, this is the PS3 version I have been playing and so things could very well change come the release of the Xbox 360 version. We can look at Sega’s other multi-format “Virtua” release and that is Virtua Tennis 3. This is interesting only because Virtua Tennis 3 is on both PS3 and Xbox 360 but there is one distinct difference between the two versions of the game and that is online multiplayer – put simply, the Xbox 360 version of Virtua Tennis 3 does indeed have online multiplayer while the PS3 version does not, so perhaps a glimmer of hope for Xbox 360 owners eagerly awaiting their next online brawler.
Preview By: Wayne Julian
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