Kakuto Chojin

Pros • Cool lighting • Four-player multiplayer • Good sense of impact and weight to blows • The Matrix-style victory cam can be cool • Some of the credit-roll victory dances are cool (see, especially Crusher Ramirez) • Easy to get into	Cons • Limited move sets, short list of characters • We've seen these characters types one hundred times before in every fighting game---only the Brad Pitt from Fight Club and Sweet Tooth fighters show any originality and even they are, obviously, knock-offs of other sources • Boring arenas • For all their fancy shinyness, the characters look like they are made of plastic • Sure there's blood, but it doesn't conform to anything---why for example does someone spit blood when I kick their shin? • Where are the unlockable items to keep you playing? • Harsh music and sound plus the overt adolescent fantasy characters are likely to turn off any casual gamers (who are a big group of people who still enjoy better fighting games) • Crappy, crappy, crappy manual that fails to explain even the speed gauge or the two different fighting styles that each character has
Bottom Line The only real reason for Microsoft to publish and promote this fighting game is that the better ones like Tekken 4 and Virtua Fighter 4 are still PlayStation 2 exclusive. You might have noticed from watching the Gameface segments of The Electric Playground, that when we ask actresses and models, or any women, for that matter, what videogames they play, the invariable answers are "Pac-Man" and "fighting games." Good fighting games are easy to get into and enjoy. They have spectacular art and animation and a wide range of characters so that everyone can find some on-screen alter-ego to identify with. Good fighting games are easily accessible fun, yet contain enough depth to their combat systems to keep the hardcore gamers interested as well, trying to master the hundreds of possible moves and subtleties, not to mention unlocking all of the hidden characters, costumes, and other goodies. Of those strengths and attractions of good fighting games, Kakuto Chojin has only good graphics and easy playability, and rakes even those slim fingernails over the blackboard of its harsh presentation. You will continue, in future EP shows to hear actresses mention series like Tekken and Virtua Fighter, but I'll eat my copy of Kakuto Chojin, plastic DVD case and all, if even one ever says she plays it. And, while there is no doubt room for a gritty, "back alley" brawler directed at hardcore gamers (Wu Tang did okay), just like there is room for the blatant misogyny of Dead or Alive, Kakuto Chojin fails to deliver the depth that is required of a fighting game to keep the attention of serious gamers.

Consider Kakuto Chojin the Twisted Metal Black of fighting games. It even has a Sweet Toothy kung-fu clown to go with its gritty fight arenas and driving metal soundtrack. It's kind of a testosterone-overdriven disenfranchised young-man's fantasy of angry music, harsh, slashing metallic sound-effects and mighty muscle-bound, large-packaged men grabbing impossibly busty women by the split legs and slamming them, splayed, on the ground below their own heaving crotches.

But enough psychoanalysis, and on to game criticism:

Kakuto Chojin has some potential. For one, it offers four-player multi-play (we could definitely use some of that on Xbox Live), but fails to take advantage of it. Barbarian is another mediocre fighting game, but it makes good use of four and even eight characters brawling on screen throughout the story mode of the game, which keeps the variety spice a little more pungent than the insipid aromas wafting out of Kakuto Chojin's story mode which consists of--you'll never guess it--a string of fights to win an imaginary tournament. And, there's no real payoff to winning. No cut-scene, no story line, no unlockables, just a lame text-scroll telling what so-and-so unimaginative character did after winning all the money and glory of the "Fist of Fire" tournament. A couple of the characters, though, do have fun victory dances that scroll during the credits.

Really though, it is the fight system that fails Kakuto Chojin. Continuing the current trend in fighting games of making a Capoeira-styled woman the easiest to use and toughest character in the game for being able to string together an unending combo of attacks, Kakuto Chojin has a system where every character has a simple combo or strong, quick attack string that can be endlessly repeated for victory. Furthermore, once you discover each AI fighter's weakness, you can defeat them effortlessly with any character. The Brad Pitt knock-off, for example holds his hands up where you can grab him by the wrist for a throw, over and over and over and, stupidly, over again; He just doesn't learn. I always suspected he was too pretty to have any brains.

Oh, and I have a question: Why is it that fighters blow big red clouds of what must be blood from their faces (I assume their mouths and noses, and not their eyes, but it just isn't that clear from the visuals) even when I kick them in the shin? Must be a lack of refinement. That same lack of refinement that is evident in fighters continuing their ready-stance prance even after their opponent is knocked out rather than recognizing their victory. The same lack of refinement that has the game lacking extras and a proper manual.

I am being hard on this game, which is probably brought on by having just finished playing it. Kakuto Chojin has a harsh tone. Music, sound effects, character design, and combat are all harsh. Blows have a real sense of weight to them, and the game does have at least some of the back alley grit it aims for.

Gritty, individuals with a penchant for slashing metal and fantasies of slamming women to the ground to watch their tits rebound from the force of it all will probably love Kakuto Chojin, whose name at least is kind of fun to say, you've got to give it that, anyway. Honestly, as with most any fight game, most anybody can enjoy it easily for a few minutes until the harshness of the atmosphere drives them away or until they play long enough to start to want some depth to the game (which really, won't be that long).

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