Wow, I just love fairness.
I've read every review up for Iron Phoenix up till now and I must say that I'm completely unimpressed with the opinions of these professional reviewers. I've played these so-called great games that are out there and I just dont see why some are embellished to be the "greatest game of the year" and others get bashed.
Iron Phoenix is a great title.
That being said, I'm going to tell you why.
First, lets look at the things that we take into consideration in games of this type. Graphics, Sound, Story, Gameplay, Innovation and Multiplayer.
Graphics - Hmm... now lets see, good character models without any funky armpit issues, check. Normal mapping, check. Reflections, check. Reactive water, check. Good frame rates, check. Interesting design in levels and weapons, check.
Honestly, when there are 16 players online in a level, there might be a little slowdown, but you have to realize, this is a 16 player fighting game where you have access to 9 different weapons (initially, since future content updates will include weapons) and the levels are immense. There are particle effects, special moves that are different from weapon to weapon, 2,3, and 4 player cooperative special attacks for when you are playing Team Deathmatch, VIP and Giant Kill modes. Well, I think that there might be a little of an excuse for a little slowdown. Even though, that is a thing that usually gets fixed through updates. That happened to Halo 2, Unreal Championship and Mechassault 1. All three were top notch xbox live titles.. no one was giving them 4.1 out of 10 reviews.
Sound - The music in the game is servicable, but the holy grail of sound options is available in this wonderful fighting game... Custom Soundtracks. I cannot explain how happy it makes me to beat down on a huge group of people while listening to some good ol System of a Down or some Element Eighty.
The voices and sound effects are also done well and not suffering from any hit detection issues.
Story - The story mode was ommitted at the last minute in order to reach deadline. Sadly this does cost the game a few points with some people, but not with me. I was dissappointed by the stories in Halo 2 and Mechassault 2. Both were short and not interesting enough to draw me in. Either way, people were playing the multiplayer mode all the time online, and that is where Iron Phoenix shines. If anyone is interested, there is an animated story narating the origin of each of the 9 Iron Phoenix weapons.
Gameplay - This always is the portion that can make or break a title. Here is how it works in Iron Phoenix. You can address more than one person with your attacks, but more often than not, you pick one person, lock onto them and show them your love. This is done by getting close to them and clicking the right stick. You can jump with 'A', run or stick to walls with 'B', perform a quick attack with 'X' and a slower but more powerful attack with 'Y' and a much harder attack by pressing both at the same time. Left trigger blocks and the right trigger gives you some weapon and attack based options, all mapped to the face buttons while the back button gives you some multiplayer options like challenging other players to bloodlock, laughing at other players, pretending to die and taunting. Lastly you can grab objects and other players with the black button. Of course there are combos and special attacks that mostly use button presses with X or Y and directional presses towards or away from your opponent. There are also tons of evation and mobility techniques like running up walls, floating in mid air, hanging onto walls in 'gecko mode' and performing the cloudtread jump that will shoot you up pretty high up. All these moves are available if you just mess with the intricate system of this game. There really isnt much of a delay between your button presses and the character performing said moves on screen unless you're having a little slowdown, but again... that is pretty rare unless you have some serious lag issues.. and that depends on your connection and less on the game itself.
I feel the game is very responsive and very fun to play, especially in other modes aside from the standard Deathmatch mode. There is the self explanitory Team Deathmatch; VIP mode where it is just like Team Deathmatch, but points are allotted by killing the VIP of the opposing team who is selected at random each round; Giant Kill where one or two players are attributed the status of Giant and are extremely powerful. The giants have to kill 40 heroes to win or the heroes (the normal players) have to kill one of the giants just once; lastly there is the challenge ring which is for one on one fighting purists who will go through a tournament mode where players wait thier turn to go one on one with another player undisturbed by others.
Innovation - There has never been a 16 player fighting game that was workable online with a variable set on the fighting system that changed all the moves depending on what weapon you were holding. 'nuff said.
Multiplayer - This is the meat and potatoes of this game. Setting up or joining a match is relatively simple. Your friends list and everything else you might need is all set. The only issue is that when someone is speaking to you, you cant tell who it is without asking them, unlike most other xbox live games that list the speaker's name in the top right corner of the screen. This might be an annoyance if the people you are playing with are annoying people, but again, thats less of a problem with the game and more of an issue with the immature, annoying people you are fighting with.
Conclusion - This game is very fun, very immersive and I think can only get better as long as the developers keep up with more and more downloadable content. The 50 dollar price tag might be a little outlandish to some, to them I say wait a little bit and get the game later. Oh, and dont listen to any of these reviewers who are tearing appart the game for problems that other 'games of the year' had and ignored.
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