One Must Fall: Battlegrounds

"The original still beats this game..."

Introduction:
One of my favorite fighting games when I was younger was One Must Fall 2097. I walk in to Gamestop and see One Must Fall: Battlegrounds for sale there in the bargain bin for $5, so I decided to pick it up. That was where the fun ENDED!

Graphics: 4/10
For a game made in 2002/2003, I expected more in the graphics department. I didn't expect Doom 3 style goodness, but the graphics they have in One Must Fall: Battlegrounds were terrible. The best-looking thing in the game is the character models, which have shine. The backgrounds in the levels, and the menu system are pure garbage.

Game play: 3/10
Unlike One Must Fall 2097, which I played for many hours during my past years, I couldn't find myself to play a few hours worth of One Must Fall: Battlegrounds. There may be more modes, more maps, full 3D environments, and more… but it just doesn't have the same fun and excitement as the original game did.

Controls: 4/10
No WASD controls… use the arrow keys to walk, and the WASD keys to fight. They should have made the default controls more based on the mouse and standard keyboard controls. Rather clunky and hard to find the different buttons for attacking and blocking during a fight.

Sound/Music: 5/10
At least they kept the main theme from One Must Fall 2097! Other then that, there is no other music, and the sounds hardly sound different from the original One Must Fall game…

Story: 2/10
Must. Win. Tournament. For this day in age, even Bad Dudes for NES had a better story. (The president has been kidnapped by ninjas!) The characters have NO development… all they have is different stats and colored bots.

Online Multi Player: 3/10
Most of the time there is only 1 or 2 servers running at a time… and most of the time they have no people playing… when I finally found a game with another player in it, I joined. Once the game started, the server started lagging out. 5 seconds later I find myself dead. Not much needs to be said here asides that I will never play online again.

Pros and Cons:
Pros: Cheap
Cons: Lame graphics, bad game play, clunky controls, mediocre sound and music, pathetic story, bad multi player.

Buy or Avoid?
Either avoid, or buy for a cheap, fairly good-looking coaster.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/02/04