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Three
years after its theatrical release, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
finally comes to a console. Relive the journey of the legendary sword,
the Green Destiny. The game follows the same plot as the movie with Li
Mu Bai trying to give the Green Destiny to a friend only to have it
stolen during the transfer. The movie does an incredible job of
conveying that story but unfortunately the game falls short.

The
graphics are really disappointing. The only good character models are
the main characters and the bosses. The enemies you face in the first
level will be the enemies you face in the last with only different
coloured clothes. That was acceptable for the 16bit days but this is new
generation gaming! Also the levels are very bland and boring. Many of
the levels are too similar to each other. The game involves quite a bit
of backtracking and it doesn't help already dull levels.
The
game uses four different types of attacks: Unarmed attack, hard unarmed
attack, weapon attack and hard weapon attack. By varying these you can
create some pretty cool combos. You can also grab an enemy and depending
on the buttons you press and the weapon you're holding you will unleash
a cool combo on him. Also with the use of the dash button you can flip
off walls and run on them too like the characters in the movie do.
Unfortunately this doesn't fit into the flow of the fighting and is just
a gimmick that loses its dazzle after one minute. The flow of the game
itself is really horrible. The fighting is very choppy and you could
face swarms of enemies only to have the next level literally completely
empty. The whole game itself seems like a bad Shinobi. The two games are
very similar in context with Shinobi having the most polish and flow to
it.
But
CTHD has one main thing going for it in terms of control. It has a
feature called Combo Blocking. It's the coolest part of the game and is
one of the coolest things I've seen in my life. When an opponent starts
an attacking combo on you an icon near you health bar will start
pulsing. Basically if you press the block/dodge button to the rhythm
your character will block, flip and juke around the attacks. It looks
like the wonderfully choreographed fights in the movie done by Yuen Wo
Ping. Unfortunately this positive also has a negative. The pulse is
always the same no matter what enemy or what weapon you are being
attacked by. And also there really is no rhythm as you can just button
mash the block/dodge button and you won't get touched. Nonetheless it is
a very cool feature.

The
sound is basically the scores ripped straight from the movie. Luckily
the sound in the movie rocked so it's a nice bit of nostalgia to hear it
again. The sound acting isn't that bad but there's a real shortage of
it. The only sound acting is done in the short CGs before and after
every level. The CGs are very poor and are only there as a lame attempt
to keep you to continue playing. Clips from the movie are given to you
after every level you beat with a good grade. I'm a little indifferent
on this because while it doesn't hinder the game, it doesn't help it
either.
Too
many negatives do not equal a good finished product. Although Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon isn't a horrible game, it isn't a good one. And
with the license of a movie that was such a huge success, an okay game
just isn’t acceptable.
-
Stefan Shetty
(November
2nd, 2003)
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