Fighting VipersReview by: Electronic Informer After the huge success of the Virtua Fighter series, one would assume that AM2 would produce the greatest fighter of all time for the Sega Saturn. Fighting Vipers is certainly different from other fighters, but whether it's better or worse than VF or other games is hard to judge. You get 8 fighters, Grace, Bahn, Raxel, Tokio, Sanman, Jane, Candy and Picky. Mahler, Kumachan and Big Mahler all appear as hidden characters. Unlike Virtua Fighter 2, the game has a fair number of secrets. There are several clear differences between FV and VF (Hey, the initials are reversed! Coincidence?). The most obvious is the fact that all the rings are caged instead of open. This eliminates cheap Ring Out victories and adds some strategy to the game, as you can use the cages and walls to juggle opponents, and set up some cool combos. Fighting Vipers' graphics are in some ways a step up from VF2, and in other ways, a step down. The game has some great lighting effects (especially on Jane's stage) and amazing shadowing (the shadows look wonderful). All the fighters move at 60 fms, and the cages and arenas are all texture mapped polygons. In fact, the area surrounding most cages is mapped out, as well, eliminating the "floating" rings in VF2. Exceptions are Old Armstone Town (the ring is supposed to be spinning) and the Elevator (for obvious reasons). On the downside, the fighters and arenas are all in low-res mode, meaning lots of jagged edges and pixelated walls. Fortunately, the fighters don't look half-bad if you don't sit right up close to the screen. The fighters have noticeably less polygons than the VF2 fighters, which detracts from the realism, but some of the rings look pretty good, especially the wood in Old Armstown and the pavement at the UFO Diner and the Airport. Pop-up occurs frequently in the walls and cages, but rarely on the fighters (except in Big Head mode, where both the fighters and the walls disappear). The sound is strange. The music is mostly loud rock, and the tracks lack personality, unlike VF2 where the music gave flavor to the stages. The announcer really sucks. They should have kept the announcer from VF2. This woman sounds very weird. Listen to the way she says "Fighting Vipe-rs" and you'll see. Also, the "let the action begin" could have been taken out. The voices of the fighters are good and bad. Grace and Candy have such high-pitched screams, they might drive you mad. When Grace executes a throw, she makes a sound as if she was having an orgasm. Bahn sounds nuts, too. Some, though, like Raxel's "can't play that!" sound cool. The sound effects are the best part of the soundtrack. Bone-crunching back-breakers and snap kicks rock your speakers. Cool features abound in FV. Each fighter has armor on their upper and lower halves. And each fighter has "armor-breaking moves" which blast the clothes off their opponents. Some fighters, like Candy and Grace, have virtually nothing underneath, showing immense breasts. Candy even has a butt-attack in which you can see her thin black underwear. This is probably as close as you're going to get to nudity in America. However, it's still a really cool feature. Of course, if you lose your armor, your defense goes down. You can also blow off your own armor, to gain a speed-burst for the rest of the round. The cages add a new dimension to fighting games. You can knock an opponent into the walls, and keep him in the air for as long as you want. As an added feature, you can blast your enemy through the walls as a finishing move. This is really dramatic, on some stages more than others. On most levels, the player smashes through the cage or walls and slides far away from the ring, with broken bits of metal and cement crashing down on them. However, cooler stages like Jane and B.M. have wrestling type ropes which stretch when you fling your enemy on them, and fling them forward like a sling-shot, into the sky. Finally, Raxel's stage is on a glass elevator, which shatters, sending your opponent tumbling to his or her death. Tip: Try running after them when they fall! You can finish your opponent in other ways using the cage. Finish them with a high attack, and they can fly right over the edge of the ring. Or, if you're really good, make them land on the top of the wall or cage lying down, which cracks their back as they lie limp. As you can see, FV has good and bad points, just like VF2. They both do some things better than the other, but it's really hard to judge which one is better. Rent them both, then decide. Or better yet, if you're patient, Fighter MegaMix will soon be here, which combines both VF2 and FV, plus other hidden surprises!
Graphics: 4.5 (out of 5) |