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DVDfever.co.uk – King of Fighters XII Xbox 360 review Dom Robinson reviews
Ignition
- Price: £49.99
- Players: 1-2; online multiplayer: 2-8
- Widescreen: Yes
- 60Hz: Yes
- HDTV: 720p/1080i/1080p
- Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes
- Xbox Live-enabled: Yes
- Vote and comment on this game: View Comments
King of Fighters XII celebrates the franchise’s 15th anniversary with this release, fighting 3-on-3, so the first team to lose all three characters (which is usually mine, against the CPU) is eliminated. You start off with a choice of 22 bad-ass guys and gals with which to make your choice, and while it can be easy to make the choice to just go for women you can stare at, let’s face it – they don’t always get the job done, do they? That’s why there’s more blokes you can pretend to be. Yes, that might sound sexist, but Clark Still and Ralf Jones kick major ass.
Once you’ve picked your team you can select ‘normal’ mode, which allows for special moves using standard controls, or ‘simple’ mode where special moves can only be performed by pressing a button while the left stick is tilted. Choose the order for which your team are going to get sent back to hell and begin.
Naturally, there are a very long and complex list of commands you can carry out which do all kinds of whizzy things but… I never have a clue when it comes to this sort of game so I just end up mashing the buttons and hoping for the best. Sometimes this actually works…
Battle-wise, I also found it was best to jump about a lot to avoid the baddies. When you can get some punches and kicks in, land a few and then get the hell out of there again so you don’t get pummelled in return. It’s also fun to watch women beating each other up. It’s like a Friday night catfight in Manchester town centre!
There are several ways to play, the main one being the Arcade mode. You’ll first have to complete a time trial where, after 60 seconds, if you’re both still standing then the one with the highest amount of energy left goes through. There are five of these 3-on-3 rounds in total.
The other gaming modes are as follows:
- Versus: This lets you play 2-player and CPU battles.
- Practice: For learning the basics and also combo moves.
- Replay: Play back a saved movie.
- Online: Play a game on Xbox Live.
- Gallery: View illustrations unlocked during the game.
- Marketplace: Purchase items via the Xbox Live Marketplace. Both this and the Online option require a Gold subscription which I don’t have.
The graphics burst forth in glorious multicolour and in high-definition and look fantastic. There’s nothing to fault them, not even their slight cartoony appearance during the fighting because that’s the intention, so anyone who’s a big fan of this series will be right at home here. Soundwise, this is great too as the DD5.1 sound literally packs a punch when you go wading in to get your ass kicked by a girl. It’s a marvellous aural/visual experience, but while there’s a lot going on and it certainly does the job it’s meant to do of an arcade fighting game, it’s fairly straight-forward in what it does. I’m trying to get my new Blackmagic Intensity Pro capture card to record HD footage properly but it’s just not happening at the time of writing this review, and there’s no SD 50Hz option so I can’t prove here how bad I am at this game.
Overall, this title is fun for a while but after a few hours you’ll tire of this unless you’re a dedicated fan of the series. For those who are part of that number, you’ll be happily mashing your buttons away until there’s nothing left of them.
Note that the Amazon link above is for the PS3 version because, for some inexplicable reason, the Xbox 360 version isn’t available for sale on Amazon.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.