King of Fighters XII Review: Beauty And The Beast

The “King of Fighters” series has a much more interesting history than most of its contemporary, fighting game, competition. Throughout its long life, the cast has been shrunk and expanded, move lists tweaked, and other various changes have been made to the three vs three format. However, one thing that has consistently remained the same is the character sprites, but with the release of “King of Fighters XII,” the sprites have finally received a huge face lift to meet the current HD standards. While this sounds all great to long-time “KOF” fans, is it enough to grab any potential new fans? [Continue Reading]

BlazBlue and Guilty Gear at Aksys’ Comic Con Booth

I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I’m looking forward to Aksys Games’ “BlazBlue” as much as I am “Street Fighter IV.” Created by the famed Arc System Works, “BlazBlue” looks absolutely gorgeous, and I’m a real sucker for great looking 2D fighters. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not very good at them, and most of you would kick my ass, but I do love playing them. At last week’s New York Comic Con we stopped by Askys’ booth to get a look at the beautiful “BlazBlue” and its spiritual predecessor “Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus.” If you doubt my judgment on just how good “BlazBlue” looks… just watch the video, and then go get your PS3s ready.

Preview: Whipping Some Ass With Castlevania Judgment

It was funny hearing that “Castlevania: Judgment” shouldn’t be called a “fighting” game, even though it could very easily pass for one. In case you’re looking to categorically correct, Koji Igarashi, and the team at Konami are calling “Judgment” a “3D versus action game” and so should you. In their defense, it isn’t your typical fighter, but not calling it a fighter is like saying sky blue isn’t really a shade of blue. Attempting to call it anything other than what it is might take away from the the overall goal in the newest “Castlevania” which is, like all other fighting games, to beat the snot out of your opponent.

At a recent demo, I was told by one of Konami’s product managers that the upcoming title for the Wii was created to be a pick-up-and-play, multiplayer game. In other words, the controls are supposed to be easy to learn (which they are) but not very precise (and they are not), in hopes that this re-imagining of the classic franchise might appeal to the Wii’s broader audience. So much so that, one of the goals of “Judgment” was to take advantage of the Wii’s motion controls, but within reason, and not force players to over exert themselves.

“Castlevania: Judgment” doesn’t appear to be anything but a fighting game from the outset, partially because it’s hard to shake that label when you have two characters beating each other up under the confines of their enviornment and the match’s time limit. However, both of those confines are what really help define this new game in their own unique way. [Continue Reading]