The King of fighters series has a good reputation as a balls-out old school 2D beat ‘em up. So will the gamble pay off by bridging the gap into the 3-d market?

MI2 feels like an amalgamation of the main 3D fighters around, and traces of the Dead or Alive and Tekken series are unmistakable. Every woman has at least one low-cut, skimpy outfit with which to jangle her jubblies all over the screen in and there’s also a bevvy of buzz-cut meatheads with which to pummel your opponents with Tekken-like combos. The trouble is nothing ever really seems to quite click properly.

A small amount of the KoF regulars (about half the amount of the last KoF game) survived the transfer to the third dimension, and those that have seem to have undergone a strange caricature modelling that, ironically, usually only happens when things are translated to 2D cartoon animation. The beefy men have shoulders wider than Beth Ditto’s waistline and the women rival Dog the Bounty Hunter’s wife Bath for breast size. The remaining men look and dress like they’re straight out of a Gary Numan music video - I guess Emo is the new new Romantic…

Although your characters are in 3D and the arenas look that way too I’ll be damned if this game doesn’t want to be as 2D as Parappa the Rapper- after being run over by a steamroller! The game is essentially advance/retreat and jump; you don’t have multiple levels or even use all of the arena. The closest you get to the third dimension is when you side-step, which you don’t really do that often and was ground-breaking ten years ago. Making a 3D game and making you play it in 2D is like using a McLaren F1 to do the shopping. What a waste.

The gameplay shows the game’s true looks over substance attitude the most. The controls are the standard for any beat ‘em up, but the difference being where in games such as Capcom vs. SNK or Mortal Kombat (I did love that game) it took a lot of discipline and red thumbs before you knew the moves off by heart. In MI2 you’ll often accidentally hit a combination which launches your character into a 20-hit combo, which is indefensible.

The 2 player isn’t much more fun than the single player, as your friend can just as easily accidentally cause more damage than he intended and where the AI is held back a bit each stage in SP your skill counts for absolutely nothing when playing against the button-bashing friend.

King of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2 doesn’t feel like a game that has had the full attention paid to it. You see why when SNK released KoF XI at the same time, and is apparently much better. By trying to cater for both tastes (2D and 3D fighting games) MI2 has fallen between both fences into the mire of mediocrity. If you want a 2D fighter the latest KoF offering is worth a look, and the Tekken series, although due an update can still run rings around MI2.