This game alone may be enough to kill off Chuck Norris.
This game is not based upon any film or even Lee himself. The controls are clunky feeling most of the time, followed by a combat system of useless combinations. The graphics are mediocre, and the voice acting is horrible, as is the soundtrack. Needless to say it’s quite a big disappointment. The game begins with a premise that is no real surprise. Lee enters his training facility and is told that a priceless relic was stolen by the Black Lotus gang. The very same gang has also kidnapped Lee’s father, as well as plot a scheme to create super-soldiers for world conquest. A decent storyline that works within the realm of funky Kung Fu classics.
The game is fairly simple itself. You basically direct Lee through several environments and duke it out with groups of thugs. While traveling and battling, certain objectives will be revealed to the player (on screen), and often resort in the fashion of time attacks and skills tests. The majority of the levels themselves end with a one-on-one boss battle. Upon the completion of levels the player has the choice to purchase moves, health, or strength via coins which are dropped after beating upon the baddies.
The game has several problems. Ridiculous load times being one such issue. In the time it took to load I feel I could have had more fun watching an actual Bruce Lee movie. The controls are not as responsive as one would like, resulting in the use of the most basic combos at the player’s disposal. This also ties into another flaw, here the AI is lacking. There is no need for drawn out special moves because the most basic combinations are enough to beat down your opponents. Even the boss battles were fairly easy.
What really shames the name of Bruce Lee are the graphics and soundtrack. The use of low polygon counts, lack of facial features, and the fact that this is an Xbox title are all disappointing. The environments themselves are filled with low resolution textures, poor colors, and horrible lighting. The soundtrack itself seems to only consist of a few tracks, and none of them are appealing to the ears. The voice actors themselves give poor performances which only add to the problems.
If clunky controls, mediocre graphics, horrible sounds, and extremely ridiculous loading times don’t discourage you then the fact that it takes less than 3 hours or so to complete the game should. All in all this game is a mess. I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone.