SNK is famous for the 2D fighting games and has always rivaled with capcom's Street Fighter with their fighting game, King Of Fighters. Since 1994, King of Fighters has always been known for it's great character line up, great gameplay, and teams that have between 3 to 4 characters in them. King of Fighters: Maximum Impact is the first King of Fighters game to go 3d, and one of SNK's few attempts at a 3d fighting game (others being Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, Samurai Showdown 64, Samurai Showdown 64-2, Samurai Showdown Warrior's Rage, and Buriki One). While SNK fans may appreciate seeing some of their favorite King of Fighters characters come back in this 10th aniversary game with improved graphics and looking better then they ever have, they might be disapointed by the overall presentation of the game. Since this game is the fifth or so 3d fighting game SNK has made, SNK hasn't quite perfected what it takes to make a good 3d fighter. Because of that, this game has quite a few bugs and glitches hear and there with clipping, hit boxes, and other basic problems. Not only that, but it's like this game doesn't know if it wants to be 2d or 3d. While the graphics are definetly 3d, the gameplay can't really decide if it wants to or not. Side stepping is extremely slow, and almost useless. Making it as if you are playing a 2d game. Yet, it's gameplay isn't all like the 2d KOF games either. The stages are set up similar to that of Bloody Roar. You are in an incaged ring. Although the environments surrounding the stages look good, the walls have little interaction. You can smash people into the walls now and then, but that's it. You can't break them down to get a ring-out on your oponent. You also can't wall jump off these walls either. Both wall jumping and breaking down a wall are features found in most 3d fighters with stages similar to these. Fans will be somehwat pleased most of the characters. The majority of the more popular characters have been included in this game, along with a hand full of new faces. Although some favorites like Kim Kaphwan has been replaced with tai kwon do fighter Chae Lim and the British bouncer, King, has been replaced with the British assasin Lein Neville which is disapointing to fans of these characters. The main outfits for the characters might look good, but the majority of the designs for the secondary outfits look horrible. Take Iori for example, his secondary outfit will make any fan of his feel sad inside. Although, a few of the secondary outfits actually do look good. Like Terry's Mark of the Wolves outfit and Kyo's original school uniform. Not only is the roster accompanied by new faces, but Rock Howard from Mark of the Wolves joins the scene as well. The characters now do not feel as impressive anymore. First, there is no choice in english or japanese voices. You are stuck with the horrible voice acting dubbed in english, while the japanese voices will by missed by just about all the KOF fans. Also, the characters are extremely unbalanced. Many seem overpowered while others are completely useless. The moves feel more restrictive, you can't pull off combos as easily and can't create your own combos. Also, the moves seem to have less of an impact effect. What a mean is, when someone shoots a fireball out of their hand, you'd expect some huge explosion that'd look painful. Instead, you get some effect that makes the fireball go "poof" like a puff of smoke on impact. So instead of some powerful looking attack, must the attacks look like something in a pillow fight. The boss of this game is also, quite boring. All KOF bosses seem near impossible to beat, while this boss is just like any other challenger except with unlimited energy meter. His design and personality is not so impressive either. KOF: MI is also lacking one major thing that has been in every other KOF game, teams. In ever KOF game, you can have either 3 or 4 people (depending on which year KOF it is) and KOF: MI is only a 1 on 1 fight. This might not matter to gamers who are foreign to the KOF series and that are just looking for a new fighting game for the ps2, but it's a big part to most KOF fans. There are interesting features in this game, including the unlockables, but they're not always so great. For example, K' might have some neat assecories unlocked for him, while Iori gets a guitar on his back which looks really stupid. The music is also mediocore in KOF: MI. KOF was never famous for music, but for a new fighting game on PS2, you would expect something atleast slightly intriguing. Overall, KOF: MI is a poor fighting game. It will not be found interesting to even those die-hard KOF fans. Only people who will be interested in owning this game are those who like to collect games no matter how bad they are. KOF fans might want to give this a rental, to see for themselves who this game is, but surely they might not want to purchase this game after playing it. With the Xbox version now announced to release with Xbox live enable, it gives even LESS reason to get this game for PS2. But with the unbalanced characters, the Xbox live enable version of the game will surely not be any better then this version.
Thank God for Blockbuster or I might have wasted $50 on this. The hype made it seem like this was an innovative title but it is all been there done that but better. The graphics are decent not bad not great but that is o... Read Full Review
KOF Maximum impact is revolutionaring waht this game has offer in the past decade it has became the best fighting game, this time the games graphics aloud the player to have a better look to hoe this game has progress. i... Read Full Review
