Sure it's shiny and neat, but can this graphical milestone really pull off the classic fun of it's predecessors?
It's a good pick up and play game while also being able to hold some very intense online battles, however... some characters had some advantages over others, for example, Yoda... he is one of three of possible Star Wars characters in the game along with Starkiller (Darth Vader's apprentice) and Darth Vader himself, now those two aren't too overpowered but Yoda was increasingly irritating. He is so small that most attacks just miss him completely and the ones that do hit him are normally kicks and low attacks which are normally the weaker attacks of most characters.
Apart from the Occasional lag or twitch the online is good but a lot of the online community choose to play with Yoda for reasons previously mentioned... There enough modes to keep you playing for quite a long time, the modes are as followed:
SINGLE PLAYER: Include the story mode which is fun for about 2 minutes since the stages are almost identical for most characters and the ending cut scenes are very limited and plain. However this mode also includes 'tower of souls' which is something that really helped this game out, it lets you go up a ladder of battles fighting your way through various challenges in those battles letting you unlock new items for created characters.
VERSUS: You can play against the AI or a local online player in a standard match which is as the name suggests a standard arcade match with 3 round and 90 seconds (changeable in options) to try and beat eachother lifeless with insane attacks. Or if you want just that bit more action in this mode you can play the special versus which will have you and the opponent bein able to use special bonuses which can just be a special attack all the way up to draining your opponents life.
XBOX LIVE: I didn't encounter to much lag but a high percentage of the online community still choose to just spam unbolckable attacks, but it's normally worth the irritation due to how much fun the actual fights against other players are.
CHARACTER CREATION: It's really well set out with a lot of options and is the best character creation in any arcade fighter I have ever played, but thats just me...
MUSEUM: It's a nice little add on and is fun to check the history and connections of characters.
OPTIONS: Most would not include this as an actual 'mode' but the difficulty setting is crucial if you want to enjoy your single player playthrough... trust me, when I first played the game was set on the hardest difficulty for some reason and I was hardly getting one strike in per fight...
All in all this game is fun, simple and challenging all at the same time it is let down by some repetitive move sets and the story mode/s, however it still earns a 8.5 from me and I suggest this as a buy or at least a rent if you are not familiar with arcade fighters. Happy gaming!