Ok, I've already disputed Darrens claim of cheese in another post, so enough of that.
I'll keep it short and sweet.
The graphics are excellent. The stills are vibrantly colorful, and the fmv is smooth and flawless.
The fighter graphics (we'll get to animation in a moment) are superb, very real looking, and I'd say certainly MKII quality,
Now, the movement is not as smooth as MKII (i.e. not as many frames of animation, but we all knew that already) But by no means does it look 'jerky'. The frames are very well chosen, and there is *never* a sense that your character is 'somewhere else' because the frames could not somehow keep up with the 'virtual' character.
Put it another way, some people were concerned that, for instance, if you threw a punch that 'should' hit the character, it would 'go through' the character, because two consecutive frames of animation would not intersect where the punch would land. This does not happen, and there is no sense of it happening. I don't know if I can explain it any better than that, but you will understand it when you play it.
The backgrounds are superb! Now they are *different* in style than what we might be used to seeing in MKII and such like that. In some cases, MKII may have succeded a little better. For instance, the mountains on the bridge level, look more to me like 'clay sculpted' statues of mountain, rather than 'real' mountains.
The *quality* of these images *is* better than MKII, however some of the MKII mountains do look like 'real' mountain.
On the other hand, other backgrounds in WOTW are *brilliant* and far outclass just about all of the MKII backgrounds.
All of the WOTW backgrounds are rendered in complete 3D. None of this four-layer paralaxing stuff in MKII (or ten, or fifteen for that matter. It would not make a difference). when you move around in a WOTW level, the *entire room* and every single object in it down to the smallest item, moves in full 3D paralax, just as if you were walking around your own room looking at things.
(I particularly love the big dragon grovin' to the beat on the throneroom level :) )
The music *kicks ass*, beats anything else out there, 'nuff said.
Playability: as I said, I'm no fighting game expert. But I did get into Mortal Kombat I a bit, and I've watched countless battles in the arcades between other people. From what I can see, the fighting engine is *very* well thought out, there are plenty of possible combos, opportunities for counter moves, you name it. The action is very fluid and elegant. I may not be expert, but I had no problems at least in *pulling off* the moves whenever I wanted to. In this regard, EGM is full of it.
Or more likely, in posession of non-diagonally fixed controllers. If that's what you are dealing with, then you definitly *will* have problems, which probably will, in fact, mirror the kind of behavior EGM claims to have been experiencing.
(Note on difficulty. the computer wiped the floor with my face on even difficulty. It still kicked my ass pretty good on heavy advantage me, but I did definitly feel on this level, that with a little more practice, I would start to prevail very well.)
Now, I do have one teensy complaint. I do not mind the high jumping in and of itself. It is much higher than MKII, but not to far out of line with Samurai Showdown. However, I do wish that: either the camera would pan out just a little more, or else the jumping would be toned down just enought so as to not go off the screen so much, *or* (and this would actually have been enough of a fix for me not to complain at all) the characters would jump *in front of* rather than *behind* the health bars.
Even with that in mind however, WOTW is definitly fast, intense, and fantastic. In my personal *opinion*, it is the killer 3DO app. so far, and will definitely sell 3DOs, as well as have 'em lined up in the arcade.
Note, this is my *opinion*
for the record, I like MKI, and II, Samurai Showdown, Primal Rage, and I'm pretty okay on Virtual Fighters. (I'm not that good at any of these, but I like them :) )
Our friend Darren, as well as others, may and do have different opinions, but Darren, at least, as claimed to *not* liking MKI, or II, and I think he also said Samurai Showdown arcade (but liked it for the Neo Geo?)
So those are your measuring sticks...
Quentin Mohos
michel.buffa@cmu.edu