I have to say that a trend that really bothers me is the huge amount of mediocre me too 3D games that come out all the time. There are only 3 good 3D games out there when it comes to the fighting genre. They are: Tekken, Virtua Fighter and the Capcom EX series of games. All other 3D games are me too's, so when I talk about crappy 3D fighters those 3 are exempted.

Now I am a huge proponent of 2D fighters. They are works of art. Especially those created by 2D deities known as Capcom and SNK. The work that goes into the sprite creation and character design comes through in the final product. There is no contest between the perfection that is Samurai Shodown and the horror that is a game such as Battle Arena Toshinden.

Now there have been inumerable copycats of Street Fighter that have been 2D and have sucked royal, but back then people were wise enough not shove quarters into or buy these blatant low quality ripoffs. Presently though we have people who will play and buy crappy knockoff 3D games just for the fact that they have heard that 3D is cool, polygons are cool, despite the fact that the game has no style, ambiance or playability. In short people will buy a crappy ripoff if it is touted as the next big thing! I find this sickening because it tells companies that substandard games will sell if it seems that the game is pushing some new super, duper tech. This is all wrong. While great 2D games such as Fatal Fury, Street Fighter 3, King of Fighters, Darkstalkers, and other such quality titles languished unplayed in the corner of an arcade everybody rushes in to play the new stale as hell MK or KI or even, yes, even Tekken.

I'll put it this way. 2D games are works of heart, art, and playability. 3D games in general are works of cold, calculating, and thoughtless corporate math.

So do the right thing. Head down to your arcade and pump some quarters into KOF '98 and Marvel vs. Capcom, and feel the love.

Till Next Time
N8