The Total Recall
DUD OF THE MONTH
COLLECTION!

Videogames101's
Dud of the Year


CAPCOM
FIGHTING
EVOLUTION

Artist touch: I will give Capcom credit for hiring some talented artists here. Each fighter has fantastic detail with a good deal of light and shadow. Although the 6 characters seemed too crammed in the tiny space, they're all from their respective games which can help the gamers know just what they are getting here. Cover Art rating: 8/10

Month it won: February 2005

(Capcom,
November 4, 2004)

Special note: There is nothing unique or special about this game! You can play as characters from Red Earth like a giant dinosaur but it isn't as cool as it sounds.

Introduction and Story:

Capcom has a long history of amazing 2D fighting games, eh? Street Fighter II for example was a highly popular and highly addictive one on one fighting game with incredible fast action, colourful characters, and deep game play that both casual and pro players can enjoy. Unfortunately, that game came out long ago in the early 1990's and the success of SF2 really got to Capcom's head. Suddenly the market was over saturated with tons of very minor upgrades to an aging franchise and the many lack lustre spin offs certainly weren't helping matters either. Gamers still love their fighting games though and Capcom now has the interesting idea here to combine their popular fighting characters into one grand game. The game is Capcom Fighting Evolution and it includes over 20 fighters from 5 different games. It sounds a great deal on paper but this game is anything but an evolution.

So what is Capcom Fighting Evolution all about? There is no true story line here; you basically have your typical bare bones Arcade and Versus modes found in most games of this type and then you get to pick two fighters from a cast of characters found in old Capcom only fighting games. After you win or lose a round you have the option to pick from the two fighters you picked for the next round. Not exactly very ground breaking for game play and this is definitely a step down from other 2D Playstation2 fighters like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and Guilty Gear X2 but maybe the cast of fighters can save us from the rather average options?

Controls and Game Play:

So what type of characters do you get to play here? The five games CFE represents are Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter III (see a pattern here), Dark Stalkers, and there are characters from arcade super flop Red Earth. Before you get too excited about the line up here you only get 4 fighters from each game so many of your old favourites like Blanka, Elena, Ken, Birdie, and so many more are sitting this one out. In fact CFE only has one exclusive fighter added to the line up (Ingrid) but this cute yet very lame young chick is just like every generic school girl you played in many other fighting games out there.

The main reason I think some gamers go back to all these old fashion 2D fighting games is because they may prefer the simpler and user friendly controls to the newer 3D ones. Sadly even Capcom even managed to screw that up as well. The controls can be way too sensitive at times and I often found myself performing the wrong moves during a heated contest. CFE also has a problem with unbalanced characters (guys like Zangief and Anakaris can be very cheap for example) so it can only takes a few seconds to lose lots of health fast.

Graphics and Sounds:

Other then the one new girl, all the characters are recycled from the past games. When I mean recycled from the past games I don't mean the fighters were redrawn to utilize the power of the PS2, I mean they look exactly the same as they appeared in their older games. These characters with still look fairly decent in a creative sort of way but this isn't the 16-bit generation anymore and these 2D sprites on flat non-interactive backgrounds just don't cut it in this day and age. The music and the sound effects are nothing special either since they too sound like they were lifted from old games.

The Bottomline:

This game should have been the game that would reinvent 2D fighting games since Capcom is the innovator of this genre but instead it showed why these games should stay dead and buried. There is absolutely nothing new here because not only are the graphics and sound are horribly out dated, but the game also has no new moves or techniques either. CFE is kind of like the evolution of a toilet. The newer toilet may look real fancy at first but it is still only good for holding your crap! Capcom Fighting Evolution is so bad that it is easily one of the worse games I played in 2004.

Conclusion:  
CAPCOM FIGHTING Evolution
overall rating: 05/100

Find this game on eBay here!

For 1 to 2 players
Rated (T) for Teen
graphics: 1/10
sound: 1/10
gameplay: 1/10
replay: 1/10

-StarSoldier
(Ryan Genno) 2005

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