Okay, I've been interested in this title since I first heard about it, and have been following it's progress ever since. I saw the tapes from the winter CES, played it at the summer CES, tried it again during a demo at EB, and finally spent some solid time in front of it this evening at another store.
Well, it's not a _terrible_ game...If I had a 3DO, I'd probably pick it up, simply because it's the only fighter availible. Other than that, I'm afraid I've completely lost my early enthusiasm for this title. It's been worn down bit by bit as I saw more and more of it. All the time I was hoping that the problems I saw would be fixed, that the final version would pan out differently. I'm afraid I was wrong.
Don't get me wrong, as I said, this isn't a _terrible_ game, it's just not a very good game either. On the plus side you have; cool 3D backgrounds, lots of hidden stuff and tons of moves. The list for the bad side is quite a bit longer, and since most of these points have already been made, I'll merely comment on those I feel the strongest about.
The execution of moves: Poor and slipshod best describes this. Yes, I practiced quite a bit at some of these, and got many of them to work about 60-70% of the time. It wasn't a problem with the controller either, as the buttons and joypad worked perfectly well in every other regard. One move in particular, Major Gaines' steroid boost, has me completely baffled as to how it can be so fussy. You simply press all three buttons to activate, and yet it only worked about 10-20% of the time! If the moves I _know_ how to do are this difficult to activate, how on earth am I expected to find _hidden_ moves that I _don't_ know how to do? The effeciency of the moves is also questionable. As Kontori(?), I figured out a few of his "specials", like the cartwheel and spin moves, but it seemed like every single time I used either of these, the computer simply punched or kicked me out of them. Not very useful for something that requires extra work to execute.
Yes, the computer is extremely cheap when it comes to throwing, but I found that I could be _just_ as cheap. I get thrown, the computer walks over to me, I get up and throw the computer, walk over to it, the computer gets up and throws me, etc. With the computer spending so much time in my face, this is what many rounds degenerated into.
The collision detection is terrible. I don't care if it's "elastic", or whatever, if I hit my opponent with a blow that is visibly impacting on their body, I expect them to _BE_ hit, not to simply back away, or nail me with a different move. I had characters jump down through my uppercut, land and throw me before I could do anything. Also, the overall feel of the moves is extremly "mushy". You never really get the feeling that you are connecting with your moves, due to the collision detection, character reaction and sound effects.
Most of the moves that the characters do are pretty dull, lacking the impact of special moves in other games. To be honest, I don't think I saw a single truly "cool" move at all. The fatalities I saw were equally weak, showing precious little imagination (bear in mind I've only seen a half-dozen or so total, maybe the rare ones are better)
I could go on, but I'll just end it here with a wrap-up. The bottom line, all things taken into account, is that this game _does_ offer a lot of neat tricks and gimmicks, but I found it to be simply not a lot of fun to play. It's not the challenge level either, I quickly figured out how to deal with the computer players, and I've been beaten _far_ more severely by other fighting games that I _love_ playing. This game just lacks the fun factor I've seen in many other fighters. After over an hour of trying to enjoy playing WOTW, I finally gave up and had an absolute _BLAST_ playing Bloodstorm, which simply pointed out the flaws in WOTW all the more severely.
Anyway, if you have a 3DO, and want a fighting game, this is probably a good choice, although I'd suggest renting it first. Personally, I'd probably buy it as a stopgap measure until Samurai Shodown & Street Fighter II:Turbo are released.
michel.buffa@cmu.edu