The Bouncer

"The Bouncer CGI movie or Fighting Game?"

The Bouncer

The Bouncer is a PS2 launch title, a fighting game, and a movie by Squaresoft. Not a deep fighting game, but a very deep story. This is the second attempt at a fighting game for Squaresoft. The first game was a cult hit, and I feel that this game will have the same effect.

Gameplay:

The Gameplay is fairly decent, with the little that there is. Circle does a jump attack, square does a middle attack, X does a low attack, and triangle does a high attack, with R1 guarding, and L1 doing a special move, in conjuction with another button. There aren't a lot of moves in the game, and the special moves are really easy to preform. There isn't much depth, so it is really easy to sit down, and jsut pick up the control and start fighting, and win. The characters move really easy in a 3D scale, while the fighting is in 2D scale. While not the deepest fighting game, Squaresoft did something good, and the fighting engine works well for this game. Pulling off a special move is just a matter of delivering the finshing blow on some bad guys, and buying the special moves. The bad thing about leveling up, is to gain the Battle Points is that you have to deliver the final blow on any bad guy. I found myself several times taking the time to line up and and beat a bad guy senseless, and then one of my AI teammates comes up and steals my kill.

Score: 20/30

Story:

This is defenitly one of the stronger points in The Bouncer. After all this is a Squaresoft game, and story is one thing that Squaresoft almost never screws up. You have a group of four friends, and the ''evil corpation'' steals the girl, and the three friends try to rescaue her. The story is pushed with great cineamatics. The best thing about the story is every loading screen revils a bit of back story on the three characters that you can play as. With plenty of back story, and enough there to keep you involved.

Score: 25/30

Graphics/Sound:

The Graphics are great. The Bouncer was a launch title, and it showed the power of the PS2, and the game still looks great compared to the newer games. The ingame anamations are very well done. The cinemactics are extermly well done. They are not as good as Final Fanyasy: the Spirts' Within, and they are actually a bit smoother than Final Fantasy X. It is like watching a movie, and that is the point that Squaresoft has made with this game, they wanted to make a fighting game within a movie, and that is what they have done, they wanted to show everyone the graphic power of the PS2. The sound of the hits is great, they actually sound fairly realistic. The footsteps are really good as well. The voice acting is on par with everything that Squaresoft has done. Another thing that you can count on with Squaresoft doing right is the Music. The music in the Bouncer is so well done. It makes you wish that Squaresoft would have realsed a cd with all the scores on it.

Score: 30/30

Replayabilty:

The fighting is not the meat of this game, it is the fighting, but in the production quailty. The best thing about the game that makes it really easy to play through more then once is that the game, with watching all of the cinemactics, you will only put about three to five hours into this game. This is not a bad thing, but it is a bad game, because once you get into the story, and actually start to care for the characters a bit, the game ends, but with the game being so short, leveling up your characters can go by really fast. The cinemactics are very well done, and it is like a movie, but if you don't like the story, then you won't want to play this more than once. But don't forget that you can skip the cut sences. You need to go through this game at least three times, because since you can play through the game with three charcters, the dialouge changes depending on which character you are playing as. There is also a unique leveling up system in the game where you earn Battle Points, and using the Battle Points you make the main three characters stronger, and you earn new moves for each of them, and getting the moves is a little bit of incentive to play through the game more than once. The AI in the game can tend to get a little cheap, mainly with the final boss, but building up you characters and playing the game more than once will help make the final boss fight like a drunk chimp.

Score: 5/10

Final Score: 85/100

B - My review grade

8/10 - Universal scoring system

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/04