Title: Virtua Fighter 5
Genre: Fighting Game
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Sega-AM2
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: Summer 2007

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It is not the first time and it won't probably be the last; Xbox 360 has just snatched another exclusive title from Sony PlayStation 3 hands: Virtua Fighter 5... And we're already here "previewing" it.

A double-side weapon...

This game has a really strange history: initially announced and presented at the Tokyo Game Show 2006, Sony used to show it to underline both PlayStation 3 graphic power and the possibility to port a game from the Arcade to a high-definition console.

After that, tons of screenshots and Kuturagi always proud and fond of this title which has now become a double-side weapon as only some days ago Microsoft announced the game also for its (and ours) Xbox 360.

New entries and eternal characters...

Virtua Fighter 5 comes from the porting on consoles of the homonymous title already available on Japanese arcades and developed on the not-too-powerful Lindbergh board. VF5 contains several novelties and enhancements respect to the old 4th episode of the series: particularly, game graphics seems very interesting and will probably hit the True HD (1080p) level also on Microsoft white console. We have only doubts on the skin colour chosen for almost all characters which seems too luminous and unnatural: issue that will probably be removed during the beta-testing phase.

Speaking about characters, the only added ones are the Lucha Libree El Blaze and the "fast and furious" Monkey Kung Fu Eileen, but obviously we will encounter all the past glories of the series (Aoi, Pai, Lau, Sarah, Shun Di, Kage, Jeffrycon, etc.) with maybe some physical changes due to the passing of years... everyone sooner or later will get older.

Sets will be, as always, very limited but fully detailed: even if this seems a step behind what Dead or Alive 4 offered us an year ago, clear and little combat fields are necessary for the classical Virtua Fighter "Ring Out" call... yes, the ring out that every time ruins our "perfect" score against the CPU...

Your arcade

The game-play will remain the same as always, thus the title is largely not advisable for newbies. As everyone knows, Virtua Fighter hides several "traps", because even if the concept is simple - one button for fists, one for kicks, one for the defence and all the back buttons and triggers for combos - pushing buttons without a real strategy won't help during matches, neither against the CPU nor against your, more skilled, friends.

Unfortunately, nothing has been already confirmed on the online multiplayer aspect even because playable demos are really old: the only modes we're able to test were the Arcade, three random fights, and Versus CPU. With no doubt, we'll able to play offline with friends, but currently the Xbox Live support has not guaranteed: on the contrary, the available PS3 build does not contain any online multiplayer option and thus it will be difficult that the Xbox 360 will receive a better treatment.

Final Comment

We certainly have faith on the sequel of a series so famous and of success: Virtua Fighter 5 seems the result of hard work by Sega and it will probably be one of the first titles to propose the 1080p on Microsoft next-generation console. Let's only hope that the game will take advantage of the enormous possibilities offered by Xbox Live...