Kung Fu Chaos

"A great game for Kung Fu lovers, but you won't be playing it for too long"

Kung Fu Chaos is a fighting / party game for the X-Box. If you don't like fighting, parties, Kung Fu flicks, or weird humor, leave now. Also, I suggest you see what the game looks like before getting your hopes up, as it may be too cartoon-like for your taste.

Graphics: Kung Fu Chaos is one of the most graphically vivid games I have played recently. Each of the characters has a lot of detail put into their body and clothes. A problem with that, though, is that the characters are completely hideous, not in a bad way, but in a comical way. The characters have very comic book like expressions, and are totally clichéd towards the Kung Fu stereotypes. The backgrounds are all heavily detailed and span quite a distance. All of them are, as I said before, very stereotypical. One of the things that amazed me most about the graphics, though, is the places you actually fighting in. If you're fighting in a river, that river looks realistic and insanely detailed. If you're fighting on a rooftop, there are going to be transformers, satellites, and lightning rods. If you're battling on a boat, there are going to be tons of ice blocks, and some people made of cardboard. Wait, what? Anyway, I think you get by now that the environments are beautiful. There is also a lot of level interaction. Knowing what to throw can save your life a lot. Even the stuntmen can be picked up and thrown at your enemies. While this game is realistic, it is also a lot like a cartoon. Of course, that is assuming the cartoon in question involves tanks worth of blood flying from everything. That's right, this game is pretty blood for something with a teen rating. Parents, this is not a game for the little ones. Over all, I think the graphics are great. 9/10

Sound: How this game sounds all depends on what your into. All of the music is sixties Kung Fu music. You even get the world famous “Kung Fu Fighting” song for the opening theme. There are only a few songs that play during the game, but that isn't bad because the levels are short and few, but we'll cover that later. If you don't like the music, you can just play any CD you have downloaded onto your Xbox console. The characters all drop some pretty funny lines during play. Now they just make the generic Kung Fu howls when attacking. When using taunts, though, they have some pretty good lines. My favorite is, “I laugh at you with my breath!” The thing that will probably make or break your decision about the audio is the director. The director is a short fat guy with a Chinese-American accent who yells at you and tells you what to do. He is constantly barking orders at you and dropping little lines. Sure, you can turn him off, but I think that it takes away from the game play. The sound is okay. 7/10

Story: There really isn't much of a story in this game, except that you are an actor trying to make it big in the new hit movie by director Shao Pang. The movie has a story, though, and this is how it goes…

Hero is in a tavern waiting for a blind date when suddenly, ninjas attack! Hero beats ninja clan, but accidentally destroys the whole tavern in the process! Ninja has a fierce battle with tavern owner. Now the police want to throw him in prison!

Hero thinks that things cannot get worse, but he is wrong! Hero's blind date is in fact a beautiful princess who has been captured by the ninja clan, and they want money! Our hero is a penniless underdog, so he braves the ninja fortress to save the princess. After spectacular fighting against the ninja leader, the hero save the princess only to find that up close she is quite ugly!

But all is not lost, because our hero, who needs money to live, finds out about a tomb full of gold! Hero decides to go to the spooky tomb to “borrow” some gold, so he can pay the police to stop bugging him! Inside tomb, hero fights a ninja clan who is also after the money! Hero fights furiously and bravely, and kills the guardian of the tomb! Now he can borrow all the money for himself!

But instead of paying the police, he journeys west in a big ship in search of peace, quiet, and fast cars! But then the ninja clan takes control of the ship and borrows money back! How unfair! But ninjas cannot steer the ship, and they crash it into an iceberg! Hero fights his way to the last lifeboat, but there is already a woman and a baby in it! But wait, that's not a woman! Hero beats up the unsavory man-in-skirt and rows away to a nearby-lost island.

After many days alone, the hero builds a raft to finally get off of the island. Suddenly ninjas attack! They want the heroes raft to escape the island, because they are too stupid to build their own. The hero must battle ninjas, evade a huge dinosaur, (everyone love dinosaurs right?) and battle an infected monkey to get off the island!

When he gets back to the big city, he discovers that the ninja clan has many relatives! They come after ninja, but then UFOs attack (everyone loves UFOs right?) and so hero beats the ninja clan and forever saves the world in the most spectacular battle scene in moving picture history!

And there you have it, the entire plot. This is the version from the instruction manual, and unfortunately the plot never actually comes out in the game. If you didn't notice, it contains parodies of many Kung Fu films, Titanic, Jurassic Park, every survivor movie ever made, and Independence Day. Personally, I really like it and give it an 8/10.

Game play: Okay, everything I have said has been leading up to this, the most important part of the game. Kung Fu Chaos starts you of on a very large and easy to use menu screen. This screen is very cool, and very well done. The first thing your going to want to do, of course, is go to the campaign mode. This will start you off at a level select screen. There are a lot of locked levels, and one that is open. The basic concept is that you have to make it through each level not only before film runs out, but by scoring enough kills to get three stars. It is possible to get 5 stars, but you only need 3 to earn the next level. First you will do a training level to get you used to your skills. The controls are fairly simple. First of all, you move with the Left Analog stick. For a normal attack, you press X. Pressing X multiple times can create combo attacks. The Y button is used for a quick counter-attack. This can also be used in conjunction with the X button for better combos. The B button is quite complex. When used on an opponent, is does a slow attack that knocks the opponent down. A knocked down opponent (or an item laying around) can also be picked up and then thrown both using the B button. Pressing the A button allows you to jump. Pressing white (or A and X at the same time) allows you to do a heavy attack. Each character has their very own heavy attack, in which they slow down for a moment and then use a long-range move. Pressing black (or Y and B at the same time) allows you to do a sliding attack. Holding the R button allows for blocking. When you knock down or kill an enemy, holding the L button initiates a taunt. Once you have three taunts you can press R and L to initiate a super attack that blows all the enemies away with a flurry of blood.

The first (real) level, along with 5 other levels, is an adventure level. In these levels, you must travel on constantly moving sets trying to kill as many ninjas as you can, reach the end, and beat the boss. There are also a bunch of mini levels with very odd concepts. There are 2 mini games for every major level. The mini games range anywhere from catching drunken stuntmen as they fall out of a restaurant, to playing human Pac-Man with evil vampires. When you beat every level, you get the tournament mode. Getting 4 stars on any of the action levels allows you to unlock new camera effects you can use in battle. Getting 4 stars on every level allows you to unlock a new secret level. Beating this level unlocks another secret level. Every level you get 5 stars on unlocks a miniseries episode in which you take a certain character and play a really difficult mini game. The unlockable features don't end there! Every time you use a character to beat a level in which that character is a boss unlocks a new costume for that character. There are also 2 secret characters that can be unlocked depending on how much percent of the game you have completed.

There are other play modes as well. First is multiplayer mode. This allows for up to 4 players to play through select levels. This is where one of the game's high points is. Not only are 4 players cool, but also when you beat a level, you get to watch an action replay of everything that happened in awesome movie cinema with commentary. Second is practice mode, which can be done with one or two players. It's basically a match that lasts 15 minutes and whoever gets the most kills wins. The options menu allows you to control various aspects of the game including director comments, sound, and camera modes. Finally are the extras. Here you can watch a full trailer for Kung Fu Chaos, see the credits, or even play a demo of Mechassault. These extras could keep you playing for a while, or they could bore the crud out of you. All of this sums up into one easy grade. I give the game play an 8/10.

Replay value: This is where the game falters a little. While it is fun, it can be beaten very quickly. Anyone who likes to complete their games completely will try to go for 100%. This can all be done within 6 or 7 hours of game play. The problem is that once you've done all this, you really will not want to play it unless your having a party or your really bored and looking over your collection for a quick fix. This can also be a small problem because you may not remember how to do some of the combos. The amount of fun had in multiplayer though helps make up for it. Another thing that may keep you going are the extra camera features you unlock for your camera. Some of the levels may be better with certain camera modes. You could spend hours seeing which ways to tweak a scene to perfection. I would say the replay value gets a 6/10.

Overall: Kung fu chaos is a truly innovative game. Nothing else can give you awesome combos, crazy action, and more action movie parodies than you can count on one hand. If you're a fan of fighting games, have a lot of parties, enjoy Kung Fu flicks and humor, this is definitely a game for you. If you only want to beat the game, I suggest you give it a rent, as you can complete it rather quickly. If you want to enjoy all those bonus features you unlock, and play a lot, buy it, it's only 15 bucks. I give it a 7.6 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/08/05