Copyright
© Copyright 2006-2010 blackbeltmama dot com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Virtua Fighter 5 (Xbox 360)
As a keen martial artist and a lifelong video game fan, combining the two is one of my favourite things. The Beat ‘Em Up genre has been around for nearly as long as the first video games now, and have come a long way from their roots in the form of games such as Karate Champ (fans of Bloodsport will remember Mr Van-Damme playing this in the hotel lobby).
Virta Fighter 5 carries on Sega’s pedigree lineage in the VF series, with the latest two iterations of the game being widely regarded as the finest fighting games ever created. The 2D purists will argue that Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike perhaps deserves that mantle, but there’s no denying the fact that Virtua Fighter 5 is an awesome game!
Fans of the series will be pleased to see familiar favourites back again and spruced-up with glorious, shiny HD visuals. Stalwarts such as Akira and Jacky are still going strong, and the newcomers El Blaze and Eilieen (Lucha Libre and Monkey-style kung fu respectively) make their presence felt from the get-go. On the subject of styles, there’s a wide variety represented with varying levels of realism; everything from Judo to Shaolin Kung Fu so there’s bound to be something to please everyone.
The presentation and graphics are gorgeous, as you’d expect from a next-generation title, and one ported from a hugely successful arcade title. This is actually the Rev.C version, as opposed to the Rev.B which was used in the PS3 version, the geekier of you may be intrigued to hear. What this means to the vast majority of people who’ll play this is negligible though, you just need to know the CPU plays a mean game and is no walkover! It’s in Vs mode that the game really comes to life though, be it two people in the same room playing, or over the outstanding Xbox Live online implementation.
It’s not an easy game to play at first, but if you put the time in working through the Dojo training area and the vast Quest mode – where you can customise your character’s appearance and improve your Kyu/Dan ranking – it’s a rich, rewarding experience and one which will last a long time. People new to the game won’t find it too daunting to pick up, the premise of Virtua Fighter’s system has remained unchanged throughout its history – a button to punch, one to kick and one to guard. That’s it. The vast range of moves are executed with a combination of the joystick and buttons. The only difficult choice is which one of the 18 characters to use!
Fighting game fans rejoice, finally something worth sinking your teeth into on the 360! Just be warned that the learning curve (especially online) can be quite steep.
ESRB rating: Teen
TSDAdam gives Virtua Fighter 5 a BBMReview rating of….
Karate-do: My Way Of Life – Gichin Funakoshi
Chances are, if you’re reading this that you have at least a passing interest in martial arts in one form or another. Maybe you train, maybe you used to train, or maybe you just like to watch the high-kicking, board breaking antics. Regardless of why you’re here and which style you might train in, the name Gichin Funakoshi is an important one, and one you should be aware of.
Funakoshi was the founder of one of the world’s biggest schools of karate, Shōtōkan-ryū, and he was Instrumental in bringing the original Okinawan martial arts to Japan and promoting and spreading the associated benefits to the land of the rising sun, and subsequently the rest of the world. This book is Funakoshi’s story in his own words, and despite being relatively short in terms of an autobiography (144 pages) he still manages to pack a huge amount of information in. Throughout the book his thoughts and experiences are related to the reader in the form of a series of anecdotes and stories from his colourful life, from sneaking through the back streets in the middle of the night as a young man for secretive training (and being mistaken for visiting ‘ladies of the night’!), to the second world war and destruction of the original Shōtōkan dojo, Funakoshi’s life is wonderfully depicted and paints a vivid picture of life in the late 19th/early 20th century in Okinawa and Japan.
If one had to find a fault with the book – and to be honest that’s not an easy job – you’d have to point at its brevity. It won’t take you a long time to read this book, and because of the way it’s written with anecdote following anecdote over the space of a few pages, it’s a real page-turner. It’s perfectly plausible to think that you could sit down one Sunday afternoon to start reading, only to find you’ve finished it before bedtime. Despite this though, it’s a delightfully entertaining and engrossing read, and testimony to the man who not only penned many of the original precepts of martial arts training which we still adhere to, but lived his life by them. Don’t expect in-depth analysis and insights into karate, this isn’t what this book is for and Funakoshi saved this for his master text, the Karate-do Kyohan. Instead enjoy a look back at the life of one of the true Fathers of modern-day martial arts, told in his own inimitable style.
TSDAdam gives this book a BBMReview rating of…
Getting Rave Reviews
BlogHer Review
Go Shopping
Macho Warrior Sparring Gear Set
$69.99And see the rest of our Sparring Gear
at MartialArtsSupplies.com
Martial Arts Pagoda
