Everybody was kung fu fighting…
With all the focus on motion controls in gaming now, it was only a matter of time before a kung fu fighter came out. Sure, we’ve already had the likes of The Fight for Move and Fighters Uncaged for Kinect, but both of these were awful. Kung Fu Live is a side-scrolling arcade-esque fighter, so how does it work?
It’s weird, it tries to be almost a Kinect game…but on the PS3 by using just the Playstation Eye. The end result? Not good. The PS Eye doesn’t have anywhere near the accuracy of Kinect when it comes to tracking your movements and I personally found it almost impossible to play, despite having the recommended amount of lighting and space that the game requires you to have.
Oddly, I could only get the top half of my body in the game, even though I followed the instructions perfectly. So that quickly ruled out my chances of kicking…not only that, but it also lost my position occasionally when I veered off to the side to move my character. I’ve been looking online to hear if anyone has managed to successfully play the game and the response is mixed, some say its absolutely perfect while others suffer the same, if not worse problems than me.
Maybe if the game just added Move support, it would have been able to detect your movements properly. I couldn’t even punch accurately, no matter how hard I tried. The game was just plain broken for me and I have no idea why considering I reached all recommended requirements for it to work. Perhaps an update will make it work better, but I seriously doubt it…the problem is that the PS Eye just isn’t designed to be like Kinect and it’s like the team forgot that.
There is a multiplayer mode, but considering how difficult it is for one player to navigate on-screen, getting more than 1 would appear to be impossible at this point, depending on your own set up. You may be lucky and manage to get it working, in which case I applaud you…but as a result of the way the game handled for me, it’s almost impossible for me to play.
On the plus side, the presentation is quite high for a PSN title. The comic-book style is great and although the story is laughably bad, it’s presented well. The visuals are hit and miss, but the audio is pretty bad with a stereotypical narrator.
The Verdict
Kung Fu Live would have been so much fun if it was for Kinect, but using the Playstation Eye is just an odd step when it clearly doesn’t have the capability to track you accurately. I just couldn’t get it to work, no matter how hard I tried. Others might get it to, but I’d imagine it still not being anywhere close to a rewarding experience.
