Fighters Uncaged

"Break into a new world of gaming, where you will use your fists, knees, legs, elbows and even your head to destroy your opponents," went a blurb for Ubisoft's fighting game for Kinect, Fighters Uncaged. And what an intriguing idea it is. Nearly everyone loves a good fighting game, but what if you could be even more involved, act out the moves and give your on-screen opponent a good beating without worrying about getting your own face smashed in. Of course, theory only gets you so far, and in practise, Fighters Uncaged doesn't just get a few things wrong, it gets everything wrong.

According to the official website, Fighters Uncaged is about a guy named Simon who is forced into a secret tournament and must use the skills learnt from his father, an ex-boxing champ, to take down any and all opponents in his way. I say according to the website, because if you play the game you would be none the wiser. Instead of an intro to your character, or the supposed story, you start off in the training mode - whether you want to or not - where you're taught a bunch of moves from the "70 devastating moves" available. Well, that's probably stretching the truth somewhat, it's probably more like 35. For example, the training will start off by asking you to perform a straight punch three times with your right hand. Once that's done, you'll move onto the next move, which is... a left handed straight punch. Completing that opens up the right hook, which in turn opens up, yup, you guessed it, the left hook. This goes on for every move, left and then right, three times for each one. You can skip a move, but there's a sensitivty difference between skip and accept, so just looking at the accept button the wrong way will activate it, whereas skip requires holding up your hand perfectly still for a few seconds. It may not sound especially frustrating, but when you know how to do a move with one arm or leg, you know how to do it with the other, which in turn just drags out an already lengthy introductory portion to the game.

Eventually though, after much lefting and righting, you'll be able to put your training into action by fighting... the trainer! Four training sessions with at least eight unskippable rounds await you here, giving you an introduction to the different aspects of each fight, such as focus, which is the ability for your opponent to dodge and react to your strikes, and strike distrances, which switch between short, medium and long range. Selecting the right move for the right strike distance is critical to getting a good hit in, because let's face it, throwing an elbow strike when your opponent is a few metres back won't be very affective.

While taking on the trainer, the first real cracks start to show. Doing basic punches or straight kicks work for the most part, with only a slight delay between your action and the on-screen representation. But as soon as you try to mix things up a bit, it all starts to come undone. Many of the advanced strikes just aren't picked up, especially those that involve sliding your foot or keeping it low to the ground. It also manages to incorrectly intrepret moves, for example, my feet would be firmly planted on the ground and I'd be swinging my arms around, and next minute I'd do a high kick. I'm not sure if it's because I was twisting slightly due to doing long reach punches, or because I tried to do a high kick five minutes ago and it's only been picked it up now, but either way, it wasn't doing what it was meant to: reproducing my actions in a timely fashion.

After many days in the training mode (it may haven been less, but that's what it felt like), you're finally allowed into the fighting mode - which also happens to be the only other mode available. You start off in the first of three leagues containing a bunch of unimaginative street thugs, with names like Jaw Breaker and Ratface, that you'll need to fight in unimaginative locations, such as city parks and alley ways, all while trying to earn Crowns which are used to unlock more leagues and climb the illegal street fighting ladder. At first you'll only have six opponents to fight, but after a few hours, well, you'll still only have six opponents to fight. You'll have to fight the same six oppononents over and over again, in the same boring locations, trying to better your previous scores. I'm not sure what the developer was thinking when they decided that, in the only mode in a casual game, to restrict you to six opponents, and then make you grind for the rest.

Winning fights is, for the most part, quite easy in the first league, as each fighter will be suseptible to certain ranged attacks. For example, you'll concentrate on medium and short distance strikes on some opponents, while others require long and medium strikes to go down. You'll also receive audio tips from your character during fights, such as you were too far away for a specific strike, or that you should've punched at medium range and not done a high kick. The audio tips aren't always particularly helpful though, especially when it picks out a move you've just tried to perform, but it failed to recognise it. And to make it all the worse, the audio tips are delivered in one of those most lethargic and monotone voices in gaming.

The only plus side of Fighters Uncaged is that it gives you a good work out, primarily because you have to do twice the amount of moves to get half the results. Also, you can spam attacks. Yup, just like other fighting games you can achieve the same success by jumping around and throwing your arms and legs around like a mad man. It works up a sweat, and it's quite a proficient way of taking down your opponents, but unfortunately it just highlights the fact that trying to play this game normally is just a waste of time.

Fighters Uncaged is a cash-in game through and through. It lacks creativity, polish and fun, and has no redeeming qualities. Fighting games could still work with Kinect, but if this game is anything to go on, we've got a long wait ahead of us.

Pros: