Virtua Fighter 5

Virtua Fighter 5
Publisher: Sega
ERP: £39.99

Virtua Fighter is held as the greatest fighting game series in history, period. Although Tekken always outsells VF, few serious gamers would dispute Sega’s brawler as the market leader. Yet we’ve never quite cottoned onto this en masse in the UK (or even Europe and the US so don’t feel too guilty), and that’s despite gaming’s hardcore specialist press routinely championing its cause. Here we are again; waiting to see if the smouldering underdog has what it takes to get the knockout in Round 5.

Part of the problem was, and still is, that Virtua Fighter is a game to be taken seriously or not at all. Every revision looks prettier than the last, but unless you know how to handle the fighters you’ll be lucky to land more than a feeble one-two on any opponent. Meanwhile, whether it’s the computer or a more experienced friend, the other guy is springing off the walls, dodging to your blind side, sweeping away your legs then beating on your face. It isn’t fun; it feels more like corporal punishment.

And, to be honest, it’s the same all over again. Virtua Fighter 5 looks astonishing on PlayStation 3. If you’re into clothes you could own the game to admire the outfits alone. There’s quite a bit of impressive sight-seeing too as you ponder ancient shrines festooned with cherry blossom trees by day and a fabulously lit disco for the evening. You’ll be beaten to a bloody pulp before you know it though, unless you devote the time to mastering at least one of the 18 characters.

An exhaustive (exhausting?) training mode only serves to remind you how rotten difficult the best moves are. The extensive Quest mode extends one-player value by presenting endless challenges from characters boasting real-life VF experts’ tactics, but again this is relentlessly hardcore. With a fighter of this calibre there’s infinite scope for two-player contests but remember: no pain no gain.

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