When I first caught a glimpse of an upcoming game called Kung Fu Chaos I was a little intrigued. I mean, Kung Fu rules by itself, but when you blend it with a little bit of good ole chaos then you have a winning combination. In reality, when I saw this game it reminded me a lot of Flying Dragon from N64 which I loved. I don't normally gravitate towards fighting games unless they have a little something extra that gives replay value or expands on the same old fighting game. Flying Dragon had the RPG elements and Kung Fu Chaos has the party games as well as the humor. So if you don't already know, KFC is a satire based game that plays on the 1970's fighting movies (Enter the Dragon etc…). You have your choice of exaggerated characters to play "scenes" of a movie with. Your success is rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars denoting the success of that particular movie. There are approximately 23 scenes in the Ninja Challenge and additional Mini Series missions for each character that are unlocked while playing Ninja Challenge. There is also a Battle Game where you can play multiplayer with 1-4 players and Computer players to fill in the additional spaces. The game gives you a % of the game that you have unlocked as you progress further. The number of different play modes add a lot of replay value to this game.

The first thing that I noticed about the graphics on this game was that they were cartoon based, but still very "realistic". I played quite a bit of KFC this weekend and I can say without a doubt that the graphics were right on. I didn't notice any artifacts or any clipping which is normally present in FPS style games. There were some graphical effects that I thought were cool, but kind of got in the way. An example would be when you get 3 successful taunts and start glowing thus indicating you can do a super attack. What if you would like to save the super attack for a few minutes until the screen is crawling with bonehead ninjas? You have to deal w/ a glowing fighter which might not seem like a bad thing, but it's hard to see what you are doing when your character is glowing like the Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Gold commercial. Other than that minor annoyance with the graphics, I give some serious props to MS and Just Add Monsters for their work on the graphics.

I always loathe the part of the review where I have to describe how the sound is in a game. I guess it is typical to not notice things of the average. We tend to notice either very poorly done sound or sound that was carefully planned, orchestrated, and scores a 10 on the accuracy meter. I didn't notice anything spectacular per say about the technical aspects of the sound, but what you will notice is that there more than enough one liners that are used during the game as well as between levels. The things that are said by the director or by the characters taunts during the fight scenes were just gut wrenching and really showed the attention to detail put into this game.

The controls of the game were pretty simplistic. Jump, Attack, Counter-Attack, and Throw/Trip. There are numerous combinations of those buttons that will create stellar combos. There will also be certain enemies that can only be defeated by certain combos. One enemy constantly blocks and you have to use Attack, Attack, Throw to knock him down. Another always counters your attacks so you have to Attack, Attack, Counter-Attack to knock him down…etc. The enemies that require this type of tactic don't change appearance at all so you don't have to worry about guessing what combo will defeat a certain enemy. As far as normal gameplay is concerned you shouldn't have any trouble picking up the basic controls…be prepared for some button mashing though. Your forearms will be a tad tired unless you are a seasoned button masher.

As far as the challenge level of this game is concerned…you are in for some fun. 3 stars on the level will unlock the next level, but you won't fully unlock the secrets until you get 5 stars on all the levels. Some of the levels don't focus purely on fighting. Some of them are like mini-games where you save the stuntmen by bouncing them to safety or you have to toss lifesavers to the drowning ninjas…things of that nature. Needless to say, some levels will try your patience as you watch yourself screw the whole thing up and some levels are "tutorials" that help you develop your skills. I scored 5 stars on 3 of the 12 or 13 levels that I have beaten so far, so there is much replaying to be done since anything less than 5 stars is not acceptable.

I find it very difficult to actually express how much fun this game is. While I may find it more humorous than the average person, it should strike a chord with anyone who has enjoyed cheesy 70's fighting movies or even some more recent titles such as The Matrix or Crouching Tiger. This is definitely one of those games that will always be pulled out at parties and played till it's worn down. Beating up a slew of ninjas and tossing them off various platforms or boats or tossing them into other lemming like ninjas never gets old.

As far as this game is concerned if you own an Xbox you should own this game. While I am sure that I will find some minor annoyances or caveats about the game that don't thrill me so much, this is definitely a must own. If you are in San Antonio and you want to check it out, then head over to our favorite EB in Huebner Oaks and give it a try as they have it in the Xbox right now.

Mar 3, 2003 | 1 comments
Chris Rasco