A quick history lesson: Right back in the day (the very early 90s to be precise) there were two Japanese developers that fought it out in the arcades (and eventually in the home on PlayStation and Sega Saturn) creating fighting games that were incredibly popular. The more famous of the two, in the west at least, is of course our friends Capcom. They were responsible for the fighting game that needs no introduction, Street Fighter II. However, the second developer isn’t quite as well known over here, but was incredibly popular in Japan. They were SNK, and they made King of Fighters among other (fighting) games.

   

SNK didn’t to too well in the late 1990s, and after being bought out and then facing further trouble, they were eventually saved by new funding and now go under the name of SNK Playmore. Even luckier, especially for us Westerners, is that a European publisher has picked up a couple of their new games for PlayStation2. The first of which is King of Fighters Maximum Impact 2. This is the first 3D fighting game I have ever played from SNK, so it will be interesting to see how it holds up against the other competition out there; namely Tekken, Dead or Alive, and of course Virtua Fighter. For starters, although the game is fully 3D with proper 3D characters and a nicely detailed environments, they game is still primarily played in 2D. The characters do have some sidestep moves, although they are typically evasion techniques rather than actual swing attacks.

   

From the start, at least in this preview build, they are tons of fighters to choose from. There are classics from the original King of Fighters and Fatal Fury, as well as all new ones too which mix fighting styles and abilities up nicely – some characters even have weapons such as staffs, and all of them have insane special techniques. If you have played any fighting game previously, you won’t have any trouble picking this up, choosing a character and being able to pull off moves and win a few matches. To get good at it, of course takes time and skill like any proper fighting game, but it's a friendly and welcoming game to get into, which is especially important as the series isn’t so well known over here. Many moves use similar activation techniques as the Street Fighter series, such as: down, down forward, forward + attack, and so on, and there are command lists for all characters within the pause menu so you can learn new moves.

   

There are extension options in the game such as Story Mode, Arcade mode, practice, and numerous Team playing modes too. I have been playing this a lot recently and I am really enjoying it; it feels new with the 3D graphics, crazy moves and specials and it plays very fluidly, but it also feels very much like a classic King of Fighters game which is a very good thing. SNK could of gone all out and created a full-on 3D fighting game like Soul Calibur where you are constantly moving in all directions in a 3D arena which can sometimes turn messy and misguided, but they have sensibly kept things simple, and done exactly what they know how to do and what they’re best at, and you really can’t argue with that. Can’t wait to play the final game, which will be out later this year.