Played on PS2

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (which will now be known as CTHD because I’m a lazy bum), is a story that focuses on three main characters: Jen, Shu Lien, and Mu Bai. Jen is a young woman trying to evade an arranged marriage as well as train in the arts of the Wudan with her master, Jade Fox. Shu Lien and Mu Bai share the unfortunate fate of losing someone they love in the hands of Jade Fox, Shu Lien’s love and Mu Bai’s best friend. Revenge is the prime motive for this story. A movie which was applauded for its high charged and energetic kung fu has now been recreated into a game. Does the game play like the movie? Read on to find out grasshopper.

Like the movie, this is a game where you kick, punch, slice, and dice your way through to the next scene. Ubi Soft and Genki (developer) have done a good job of sliding in clips of the movie to give gamers an idea of what to expect. The premise of the game is simple; go through each scene beating up anything that moves.

A surprising note about CTHD is the experience gain aspect of the game. While it doesn’t play a major role like in some RPG games, it will help in enhancing your character’s strength and gain access to more special moves.

CTHD is built on two main foundations: offense and defense. Also like the movie, the game is all about showing off the beautiful ballet-like sequences of attacking and defending and giving gamers an eye full while playing. When attacking you have your choice of using a weapon (sword, ax, saber, spear and more) or bringing your kicks and punches to the table. Attacking allows for light and strong attacks as well as stringing together combos. Weapons seem to be broken into a category i.e. short swords, spears, and axes, so while you do have a nice array of weapons to fight with, most of the moves will be the same for weapons in the same group. Some weapons seemed useless to me as they would prohibit any sort of evading. Since evading became a necessity when I was getting rolled on, using a weapon like an axe didn’t seem plausible. Kicking and punching also has a list of combos you can achieve but the most fun I had was pulling of the “special moves”. Special moves allow you to grab an enemy and pull off a three or four button chain that performs a throw. These moves can be done with your bare hands or while using a weapon. Most times you’ll be fighting more than one enemy so memorizing combos and special moves becomes more beneficial to you in the later stages.

Defending in CTHD is definitely more fun to watch than it is to play out. Your basic defense requires you to push the block button down and allow the enemy to hit you. It’s very basic and we’ve all seen it done 1000 times. The enemy wails away as you just stand guard absorbing all the hits. What is noteworthy is combo blocking system that has been developed. When an enemy approaches and is ready to let out a fierce combo a light will being to pulsate on the top right hand side of the screen. Once that light begins to blink that’s your cue to begin pressing down the block button. While it’s not exactly hard to keep pressing one button five or six times, it’s definitely fun to watch and is also a crucial part in keeping yourself alive.

Probably the worse aspect of this game is the camera design. Though the right analog stick gives you command of the camera (sometimes!), it still does not make up for the lousy camera positioning on some of the levels. Too zoomed in, rotated the wrong way, not high enough, there were plenty of times where I had to get out of a corner in order to see what was going on. At times, the camera really began to just annoy me and even cost me a few lives. Anytime the camera plays a factor in a game is a bad moment. A few instances are too many instances in my mind.

While the core of CTHD is a beat-em-up style game, it does feature an extra coating of style. It’s just a shame you can’t do more with it. Moves like jumping, dashing, and running up walls are ok but they just aren’t complex enough to remain interesting and fun. Fighting is the principle behind this game and if you’re someone who enjoys a good ass kicking (giving not receiving) then this is right up your alley. Gaining film clips, multiple endings, and different costumes is also a nice touch for those who find the game too quick (finished it in three days).

CTHD features some good and some not so good. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first shall we? For starters there are really only five or six diverse places you go to that has a different theme. I realize that when making the game they have to stay in bounds with the movie so creating made up locations wasn’t an option. But each place seems to offer little eye candy and didn’t appear to be detailed in great amounts. The trees had the old four sided design and lacked any kind of lushness I’ve seen in other titles. I also hope that the Xbox version gets rid of those jaggies I saw in this version. The levels aren’t on the horrid scale, but they didn’t offer me any type of flash in imagination or looks.

On the upside, watching the animations coincide with a fight is truly breathtaking. I won’t be surprised if we start seeing other games take a note and start going in this direction. The sparks from the swords are a nice touch but what really grabbed my attention is the combo blocking between characters. It’s as close to a movie fight sequence as you’re going to get and it’s what the developers were looking to do. Watching my character side-step, back flip, bend, tuck, and roll out of the way is gratifying and stays fresh throughout the game. If the rest of the graphics were as creative as this then we would be treated with something truly special. That being said, you have to take the good with the bad and most of the bad doesn’t seem as noticeable when watching the choreograph-like fighting.

I’m really happy that the game features the same language the movie went with and didn’t do something god awful like voice-overs. CTHD also features music from the movie composed by Tan Dun and even cello performances by Yo-Yo Ma. What’s there is good but I wish there would have been a few more tracks added in for the fighting scenes. The music just gets redundant way too quick.

Unfortunately there are also some uninspiring sound effects in CTHD. Most noticeably is when I broke a rock and got the sound of glass breaking… I’m not sure what rocks sound like over in the Far East, but they aren’t made of glass where I live. There are just too many reused and rehashed sound effects that are passionless. Getting the same sound from hitting someone as you do when hitting a piece of wood is a dead give away that sound effects were not a big concern in the creation process.

No Dolby Digital Support! I mean come on, you’re making a game from a movie; it should have D.D. without a question. I’m a little disappointed about the lacking of this feature.

Thankfully, the in-game interface does not get too complicated. You have an enemy health gauge on the top right and your health gauge on the top left. Under that is the block icon that gives you the signal to begin combo blocking. Very simplistic in style and that’s just what you need in a game where a cluttered screen could mean your doom!

When playing CTHD you’ll get some pretty cool fighting scenes mixed with par graphics and par sound effects. A good rental if you’re a fan of the movie or you’re interested in what the movie has to offer. In the end, sadly, it doesn’t really make to many sparks in your head go WOW.