Previews

It's a fighting game, and not a terribly good one. Take control of an anime style 3D character and punch and kick your way to the final match. Each character has special "psychic" powers that allow them to perform special moves such as fireballs. Wow, that's original. Strange how no other fighter had a character that needed psychic powers to pull it off. But, hey, at least they did something original--you're trapped in an invisible floating box! Amazingly you can't even fly around it in 360 degrees--oh no, they wanted to keep this fighter as 2-dimensional as humanly possible without actually having to draw any 2d graphics. Congratulations are in order; they've succeeded marvelously.

The graphics are okay. Much like every other aspect of this game--just barely okay. Look at the pictures, decide for yourselves. Yes, those character models do look like they were taken straight out of a PlayStation game, even when viewed through your own TV set. Pictures don't lie, folks. The special effects from the amazing psychic moves come close to looking cool. Too bad "close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, and this game is hardly explosive.

The sound? That's pretty much forgettable. Full of your standard punches and kicks, and of course those epic psychic fireball sound effects. Some of the music is borderline exciting--when you hear it the first time. Once again, nothing bad to be found, but nothing good. In the grand scheme of things, at least that puts it ahead of Deathtrap Dungeon.

The control almost redeems the game. It's perfect. But what do you expect from a 3D fighter that plays like a 2D one? That they couldn't copy what had been done at least a hundred times before them? Push up and you go up, down takes you down--you've got the idea already. The attack buttons work as they should--they attack. All of the special attacks are easily accomplished. I'd imagine the learning curve looks something like the landscape of Texas.

I think by now it's pretty obvious that I do not like this game. I had it for a week, didn't want to play it after a day. I did, however, especially for all the readers out there, and I found no redeeming value no matter how long I played. It's not that the game is terribly bad really, but there are just so many fighters out there that are so much better. Buy any of those instead. Pick one, I'm sure you'll like it more. Unless it has Kombat in the name, and if you bought that, I'm sorry… really I am. You get what you pay for, and Psychic Force 2012 retails for only $29.

Game Data

Publisher
Acclaim
Developer
Taito
Genre
Fighting
Discs
1
# of Players
1-2

Ratings

Gameplay
70%
Graphics
65%
Music
75%
Sound FX
72%
Control
80%
Replay Value
60%
Reviewer's Tilt
4 - High
Overall
69%
"Pick anything else, I'm sure you'll like it more."

Media