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Kung Fu Rider
This game is oozing with Japanese love.
Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen and for
the first 30 or so minutes of this title, I was scratching my head
trying to figure what on Earth was going on. To throw a spanner into the
works, this game is a launch title for the PlayStation Movie title and
features one of the world's strangest facials.
The man behind these facials is Private
Detective Toby with a sexy secretary who are trying to evade the Yakuza.
The game feels like it is a cross between downhill luge meets Crazy Taxi
meets some weird Kung Fu game plus some skating as you have to race
downhill to avoid the thugs. All this is happening while Toby is making
the strangest faces on the planet! Apart from Toby, you also get to
control the scantily clad Karen, his secretary as well which is also
more fun to watch.
I’m still as confused as how the hell the
developers came up with this game and sure it's originally but does it
really work as a move game? Thankfully to help my confusion, before you
start the game, you are treated to tutorial like mission which allows
you to calibrate the PlayStation Move controller and quickly learn the
ropes of this title.
By moving the move controller down, this in
turn creates speed for whatever wheeled “vehicle” that you are
controlling and to make matters worse, you also need to navigate
yourself away from a variety of obstacles in the way and some almost
Jackass like stunts such as jumps and crashes. If something gets in your
way, by moving the controller up, it will force Toby to jump. Then you
need to use the move to perform some kicks to move things out of the
way... and that my readers is where this all ends for Kung Fu-Rider
because after a while, it becomes quite repetitive and you've seen it
all before.
Race down hill, avoid obstacles, go over
jumps and Kung Fu your enemies... then repeat. Crashes are really
annoying as well and more often than not, I found myself crashing time
and time again with caused controller rage. For a launch title, it seems
that the developers lacked that "X-Factor" and it feels like the move
technology was an afterthought. In terms of replay value, if you can
make it, there are 27 courses, showcasing a particular area of "Hong
Kong" and some equally strange "off-line" multiplayer modes.
There are some redeeming features and the
graphics of Kung Fu Rider is actually relatively impressive and has some
parallels to Crazy Taxi and Driver as you race down hills and perform a
variety of jumps. The star of the game is Toby with his strange facial
expressions that almost makes it look like he had a stroke or is
inflicted with some bizarre medical condition. The environment is
relatively well detailed and the game does make use of some clever
lighting. The soundtrack is as crazy as the game as are the weird sound
effects that you would expect to hear if something like this happened.
Final Thoughts?
For such a strange game, I was really
hoping that this title would showcase the potential of the move
technology but in actual fact, it’s a rather ho-hum experience that
we’ve already seen on the Wii. It’s definitely worth a rent if you have
some friends over but for now, it is a little too pricey and doesn’t
really showcase the power of the PlayStation Move. As to the final
score, it does get a pass... just... for originality and its bizarre
gameplay. |
