Fatal Tournament (Second Opinion Review)

[Namo]

Fatal Tournament
by Soulsnatcher
Genre: Platform Tournament Shooter
Platform: Windows
Rating: 68%

Is this the Tournament you're looking for, or is this run-of-the-mill Soldat clone Fatally Flawed?
In this world, there are great games. The combination of versus shooting, jetpacks, and platforming seemed to be a match made in heaven. Following the success of simultaneous two-player Worms tribute Liero, Soldat was introduced, which ditched the clunky ninja rope and digging for a Jetpack and freer landscapes, and more importantly, frantic battles between numbers of players. Only, there were two problems with Soldat:
1. It was relatively unknown.
2. It wasn't free, and not many people are willing to pay for a game that already exists, sadly.
And so, Soldat only gained an erstwhile fanbase that slowly. but surely, sank away into the depths of forgetfulness. An inevitability of games that cost money is that not everyone wants to pay for it, so what do they do? Either they take money from the pockets of the developer via piracy, or the more kosher alternative: Find a clone of it. And there's no doubt of one thing: Where there are games, there are knock offs.

Cue Fatal Tournament.

Fatal Tournament is very similar to Soldat, except there's a few differences: The main one, the good one, is that Fatal Tournament was released upon a larger community, thus garnering the attention that Soldat wanted. However, where Fatal Tournament has its popularity, it lost a bit of Soldat's polish, resulting in a fun, albeit flawed, experience.

In Fatal Tournament, the premise is simple: You walk around and jump in a 2D Platforming Perspective, like Mario. Then, add in a gun, free-aiming, and a jetpack (plus powerups), and then throw competing parties together, and the outcome is obvious: Shoot whatever moves, and be the last one standing, using your jetpack and a slew of powerups to do so. Certainly not a bad idea; imagine Unreal Tournament in 2D with a jetpack and you're almost there.

The battles are very fast-paced and fun. You could even go so far as to say this is a twitch game; forget that intended keystroke, and you'll find yourself under a barrage of shots in no time flat, or completely missing the chance to be the one unleashing the barrage. Or perhaps you'll miss that powerup that would have set your victory in stone. Or maybe you'll miss that health pick up that would have cost you a bit more time in the round. Whatever the case may be, you need some intense focus, which is where Fatal Tournament truly shines; the game grabs your attention and purely engrosses you. You won't want to look away.

Sadly, however, the graphics aren't so engaging. The graphics are bland and square for the most part; you can easily tell what tiles are used where, and the character designs are dull and uninspired, as are the menus and logos. There are some nice visual effects in game, however, they look extremely out of place, which, sadly, does not do the graphical appeal any good. Another issue you may notice is the Crosshair isn't all that eyecatching; it will fade into the background unless you really pay careful attention to it.

The Music and Sound effects are also rather bland. For the most part, the soundtrack consists of MIDIs that don't really grab your attention; you could even go so far as to say that its just ambient music trying to be video game BGM, or that its generic Guitar fodder. The sounds consist of guns' clicks and clacks - strangely very little actual gunshot noises - but are awfully vacant over all.

The Story isn't engaging either, not that you really need one for a game like this. But for the sake of clarity, the storyline isn't really explained other than that you have to fight some guys and so on and so forth. This is all explained through cheesy victory dialogue. There's also dialogue for when you lose, but that serves no real purpose other than to reiterate the fact that you got your ass handed to you by cheap A.I. bots.

Yes, sadly, the A.I. in the game is very cheap - to the point where one of the enemy descriptions practically says it outright. "He drops mines like there's no tomorrow". And he certainly did. Other ways the A.I. is cheap is that they camp in locations - next to powerups in some cases - or just jump about firing either wildly or directly at you. In some cases, they shoot at you with bouncing bullets that are difficult to avoid to near Touhou* levels. Also, while you have to go around and collect weapons to use in your arsenal, the bots seem to just have them whenever they want - meaning don't go scrambling for that powerup before the bot gets it; chances are he already does.

There are two other single player modes; Survival and Time Attack. They are simple game modes of what their names suggest, though admittedly, are rather dull and kind of awkward, and, really, there could just be a time attack mode that also records your kills.

The online battles are obviously the selling point to this game, and the appeal is obvious; however, this is overshadowed by even more cheapness by fellow players. There's no point in going into detail here; you already know, most likely.

A very noticeable flaw, however, is probably the most lethal to your success. When you're low on health, you've got no choice but to run away from your enemy, shooting at him while you do. But, get to close to the wall (or ceiling, if you're fleeing via jetpack), and the gun's action point is inside the wall, destroying the bullets before they really have a chance to leave the barrel. This will cost you some victories, regrettably.

Regardless of all these flaws, the game is still a fun one overall. As mentioned earlier, it completely hooks your attention, making you focus intently on your target, ultimately making you overlook the flaws. But once you leave the game, you'll be left wondering "Why did that happen", or "Why are the bots so cheap", etc.

Recap:
The game looks and sounds bland, plays well for the most part, but cheap players and A.I., and a few glitches, mostly overshadow the fun.

The game isn't exactly fatally flawed - its still very playable and fun - but you can't ignore the flaws that are there, which keep this potentially good Soldat game from being too comparable with Soldat itself. Its certainly not a game you should outright ignore, but you'll soon find that you won't want to spend very much time with it.

*Touhou is a shooting game where bullets fill the screen and you can barely dodge them.