Fighter Maker

"Okay... you CAN make a fighter. Thing is.... how DO you make a fighter?"

Tekken and Street Fighter fans probably jumped for joy when this game was released. Giving the player the rare chance to produce their own fighter and to actually play them, it was every fighter fan's dream. Now they could supposedly make the ultimate brawler of their imagination. Take note of the word ''supposedly'' after yo take a good look at the manual. It's pretty thick for a game manual as it tries to explain the ridiculous complexities of mapping out your own moves etc. Take note then of the word ''tries''. Quite frankly, creating the first move on my fighter just made my head ache!

Gameplay: 3/10

If you could understand the manual (if you didn't, it's fine since few people probably did), here's a basic rundown. First off, you get to design the many physical aspects of your fighter from the admittedly few designs to choose from.

Next is the hard part. To create the moves of your fighter, you have to animate EACH AND EVERY FRAME of action of EACH AND EVERY move of your fighter. This requires you to manipulate their limbs by moving it around in the XY axis of movement. I can't stress enough how tedious, hard and annoying this is. It takes ssssoooo long to even make one move. Just thinking how long it'll take you to animate your entire arsenal is mind-boggling. The interface and system itself isn't really user friendly and it will be difficult to handle it.

Now add to this the fact that the in-game fighting engine of the game is rather weak. It's all really just simply smacking your opponent around. Now since your fighter is limited only yo the game and can't be loaded to other games (Tekken comes to mind), you'll be stuck to playing this game over and over again assuming you had the time to actually finish your fighter.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphics really aren't too good. The graphics are kind of like Tekken 2. The game was released after Tekken 3, but the graphics still could have used some polish. The characters are somewhat blocky, their faces are totally devoid of personality and their hands look like rocks. There is no slowdown during fights, but since that's a practical necessity in fighting games it's not really much of a bonus.

Audio: 5/10

Music? Frankly I don't think there's any music in this game at all. Maybe there are a few, but don't expect to hear anything impressive. As for sound effects, it's all your basic combat sounds and grunts and screams. Nothing more, nothing less.

If only this game was more user friendly! Honestly this game was made for those who have a lot of time on their hands and have some basic knowledge of programming. If you dont have time or any knowledge of basic programming whatsoever, then don't bother touching this game.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/02, Updated 12/27/02