Stick Fighter Fury Hands-on

Action games on mobile phones usually fall into one of two categories: You can save either the galaxy or the city, using an advanced space fighter or your trusty .357 Magnum, respectively (sidekick optional). Other than a few standouts like Double Dragon EX and Shado Fighter, there haven't been too many games that cover the discipline of old-fashioned, personalized butt kicking. It's a pity, because sometimes you just want to blow off some steam by turning some punk into a pretzel, Neanderthal style. Sometimes you just want to control a lone stick figure with a chip on his/her/its shoulder and trash an entire clan of tiny, featureless ninjas, y'know? To scratch that very specific itch, Guppy Games has cooked up Stick Fighter Fury, a delightful platform action game that plays like a charm--and looks like one of those ornate action sequences you used to draw in the margins of your high school physics notebook.

Here's the story behind Stick Fighter Fury: You're a stickman who fights, and you're furious! Why are you so angry? Because the Shadow Clan kidnapped your girlfriend during the game's hilarious opening sequence, which is lifted from Double Dragon! From there, your homunculus has to invade their castle, beating up hordes of enemy martial artists as he goes.

The game consists of six levels and 105 screens. To progress from one screen to another, you have to clear it of enemies. Then, arrows will appear to show you your possible exit routes, or a trapdoor will open in the floor. The Shadow Clan, for their part, seem to concentrate more on lounging around like louts than sharpening their criminal skills. You'll encounter groups of these guys leaning up against walls in a classic tough-guy pose; once you engage them, other baddies will sprint toward you from the wings, ready to surround you and beat you to a pulp.

Most of the enemies look just like you, except they're rendered in different colors to indicate toughness and rank. Typical foot soldiers are powder blue and can be dispatched with a single five-strike combo, while purple, red, and flashing enemies are much tougher. We also encountered a miniboss that seemed to be some kind of bear; needless to say, this thing dealt a lot of damage and was impossible to knock down by normal means.

Stick Fighter Fury is essentially a slick combination of Prince of Persia, Dark Castle, and Double Dragon. You start out with quite a few moves to use against your enemies, including punch and kick combos, a sweep kick for when you're knocked off your feet, flying kicks, wall-run maneuvers, a throw, and a sliding tackle; you'll also learn a back kick and a flip kick as you progress through the game. Busting up baddies with your standard attacks fills up your spirit meter, which can produce three different special techniques, depending on how full it is. These range from a dragon punch, to a fireball, to a massive, screen-clearing blast. Oh, yes, you can pick up a context-appropriate weapon, too: Sticks are lying around in some rooms, and you'll encounter an occasional enemy equipped with one.

The endless waves of ninjas aren't all that you'll have to contend with, though. The environment also employs a number of tricky jump puzzles and traps, straight out of the original Prince of Persia. Mr. Stick Fighter can grab on to ledges and pull himself up, just like everyone's favorite Iranian, and he can also walk, run, and broad-jump over pits and spikes. If you're really good, you might be able to lure your enemies through some spikes or crush them with a massive hydraulic press.

As you might expect, Stick Fighter Fury's presentation falls on the crude side--exactly where it's supposed to be. The graphical style is uniquely endearing and remarkably effective at keeping the gameplay speedy and the action heavy. In our opinion, if a game developer has to make all the characters into stick figures to make a playable action game on the Motorola V610, so be it. You'll be too busy bowling over groups of enemies with flying kicks to even look at the background anyway. The sound effects, which consist of Bruce Lee howls and a range of nasty, percussive slaps and blows, help to keep you sweating, too.

We were tremendously surprised by the level of sheer, good-natured fun in our preview copy of Stick Fighter Fury. Guppy Games clearly understands that the weak link in mobile action games is almost always the frame rate, and its solution seems to work like gangbusters. We're looking forward to seeing this game appear on carriers later this year.