The different modes include Versus, Quest, Survival, Team Battle (up to six aside), Tournament and training. The first thing that strikes you about Tao Feng is the quality of the character modelling - they look absolutely fantastic. Muscles, fabrics and boobs all look great and the fighters even show body scarring as the tough fights progress. The animation is also excellent, but the characters move a little too suddenly sometimes (zipping from one place to another at dizzying speed) but in the next instant can seem jammed in place not wanting to respond to your button presses.

   

The Quest mode tells the story in a detailed narrative of two battling sects (pale Lotus and Black Mantis), both of which covet the secret of immortality (its all terribly complicated and I even pretend to understand it all). You choose which sect to fight for, then your fighter, then pick one of the 6 available opponents. Victory earns you a piece of the sacred tablet and so on…

One of Tao Feng's new ideas is to include limb damage. Blocking (with the L trigger) cuts the amount of damage you take from an attack but constant blocking will result in limb damage - take too much and your fighter will lose the use of one arm (meaning half-powered attacks). Each character has a wide selection of moves (some of which and are just so time consuming that you'll never actually get to use them in a fight), and successful blows top up your fighter's 'chi' meter. Once filled you can unleash a selection of powerful supernatural attacks, or alternatively you can heal a damaged limb.

Tao Feng seems to lull you into the feeling that practice, skill and controlled aggression are the way to go, and then you take on a fighting game novice who just mashes the buttons and kicks your arse - simply because combos (even accidental ones) seem impossible to break or block.

   

The fighter also gets a 'second wind' (or even a third one), this means you get up to three health bars - green first, gold second and red last. As each one is depleted your fighter hits the ground, takes a breather and comes back for more. The hugely varied arenas have destructible scenery and the fighters can interact with various features - swinging round poles or pushing off walls for extra powerful attacks.

Tao Feng looks great and moves smoothly for the most part, but some of the collision detection is a little iffy and with all the eye candy and detail you still get old-school flaws like sluggish button response. Although the characters are visually appealing, we didn't think much of their personalities and they seemed to be either too weird or nondescript to encourage the sort of attachment that we felt toward our Tekken or Soul Blade favourites.