Home Gaming Gamescom 2013: Hands on with Fighter Within

Gamescom 2013: Hands on with Fighter Within

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Fighterwithin

Microsoft has made a big deal about how great the new Kinect 2 is and in my Xbox One panel I got to see how amazingly good it can be. So the technology can do what we want it to do but can the developers get the most out of it and create that fighting game that we’ve always wanted?

Well no.

I got to get some hands on with Ubisoft’s new Kinect fighting title, Fighter Within and while we are looking at an absolutely mammoth improvement over previous Kinect titles it still has some issues.

Before we get into the Kinect sections let’s look at what Fighter Within brings to the party. Ubisoft have followed the tried and tested patterns of fighting games of old with the inclusion of combo’s, counters, throws and even special moves per character.

The basic functions are as you would expect. To punch you swing your hands forward with quick jabs to the head or jabs to the abdomen and if you have some space you can attempt a haymaker with a big swing from the sides to the head.

You can place kicks to the lower legs or torso and then if you want to take out the head you need to trigger the combo’s. To get the kicking combo you need to place two swift kicks in a row and then the character will take over and place a pile of kicks across the opponents face. To pull of a punching combo you need to land 5 quick punches in a row and then once again the character takes over and lays down the law on your opponent.

To duck you simply duck down and you can also tilt sideway to avoid a punch to the face. You can then use these moves to counter so while the opponent goes for a shot to your head you can duck and swing and your character will perform and awesome counter.

In the end there is a lot of automated moves which sound bad at first but are actually highly entertaining and which make the game that much more entertaining to play. Let’s face it none of us here are professional MMA fighters, except you Ryan, so this game can make you feel like the bad ass you are.

fight

To round things up the graphics are very good indeed and the game includes destructible environments and you can also use the environment to help you. As you get close to certain sections a picture flashes up of what move you need to perform and if you do that the character will kick off the wall and take down the opponent or pick up a pole to split your opponents head open with.

So all in all it’s a highly entertaining game so why then do I say it’s not the game we’ve always wanted?

Well simply because Kinect being Kinect kept on missing my moves. I kicked forward and it didn’t notice, a quick punch and my guy defended. I’d say the accuracy of my moves was picked up by the Kinect around 80% of the time which is a great improvement over the last generation but still bad enough to be annoying.

That is not to say however that you can’t get good at this. The developer I fought against let me win the first round, well done to you sir, but then in the second round he showed that there is a lot of skill in the game and it’s not a wild swinging game.

This gave me a lot of hope for the game and the genre in general and seeing that the technology can be 100% perfect I am hoping the game will be patched on release (or fixed prior) and we can finally get our fight on properly.

Oh and the last and most entertaining part is that you can charge up your super powers by pulling your arms back and boosting it by over 9000, this makes you look like a toss and gives your opponent the chance to smack you in the face. However if they don’t get to you in time you get a super powerful attack which can virtually finish the match for you.

Oh and of course there are custom finishing moves to make you look awesome.

In the end I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game and if they release it at a low price point it would be a fun party game but right now I couldn’t recommend a full price purchase.

Last Updated: August 27, 2013

10 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief Raider of Tombs

    August 27, 2013 at 10:33

    Screw the game, rather show me videos of people doing the moves. LULZ factor 10 bajillion

    Reply

    • Gavin Mannion

      August 27, 2013 at 10:43

      There was no way I was going to videotape my fat ass doing that …. and I was the only one there 🙂

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief Raider of Tombs

        August 27, 2013 at 10:50

        You would have crashed the interwebs with youtube hits. Dammit Gav, you should have done it!

        Reply

      • RinceThisandbeAbsurd

        August 27, 2013 at 10:54

        I would pay others good money to watch that man! #oppertunitywasted Why were you the only one there? Others have better things to do with their time? Like sleep?

        Reply

  2. Hammersteyn

    August 27, 2013 at 11:20

  3. TiMsTeR1033

    August 27, 2013 at 11:26

    Off topic: can someone for the love of god please tell me what they showed on the gta 5 leaked videos? I was sick yday and didnt see anything So please if someone could tell me if I actually missed anything much…. By the way this game looks very promising the way kinect is to be used hopefullly in near future will be perfect.

    Reply

  4. Lardus-Respect the beard

    August 27, 2013 at 13:23

    * Only opened the article because front-page image had cleavage *
    Kinect game? Damn. No other arrived? Double-damn!

    Reply

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