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Kung-Fu Live review

When we first heard about Kung Fu Live, our interests were piqued. The possibility of having Kinect-style games on the PlayStation 3 is pretty exciting, coupled with the fact that it would need none of the expensive hardware meant that we were certainly interested. But would it live up to these high expectations? Find out below...

We’ve mentioned the tech already so lets go into a bit more detail. Virtual Air Guitar Company, the developers behind Kung-Fi Live, created the non-controller based FreeMotion Technology and immediately began creating a game around it. Essentially FreeMotion provides a 'green screen' style experience, removing the background so that only you remain, allowing you to interact within the game as yourself. Virtual Air Guitar Company state that the software is also capable of identifying parts of body, allowing the game to calculate a primitive skeletal structure and all of this can be accomplished using purely the camera, which is a impressive claim. Unfortunately, our experiences with the software left a less than glowing impression of the technology. The first time we used the calibration tool, the system had trouble identifying my right hand, thinking it was just part of the background; annoying when the game requires you to configure the background removal setting with this hand. Luckily, Kung-Fu Live provides a menu for tweaking some of the options for this process, allowing you to alter the sensitivity of the algorithms such as how strict it should be when looking for shadows, colours and other patterns. Ultimately however, none of these options resulted in an image I was happy with, which meant I had to adopt a best-case approach when selecting these values. Arguably some of this can be attributed to local lighting conditions and we're inclined to give Virtual Air Guitar Company the benefit of doubt but there are other similar technologies that seem to do a better job (Apple's iChat for example). Furthermore, the amount of room you needed seemed to be even larger than the Kinect, as not only do you need to stand relatively far back from the camera, but you also need to have plenty of space to move your left and right in order to perform the full range of motions required. The only conclusion we can draw is that technology is still in its early stages and, given time, it could develop into something great for the PlayStation 3 platform. It's just not there yet.

However, within five minutes of actually playing the game, none of that matters. The strength of Kung-Fu Live is knowing what to do with your character. When the game starts, your image is shrunk down to fit within the world that it has created. This smart move means that most of the blemishes you noticed during the setup phase are hardly visible. Once that happens you essentially find yourself within a side-scrolling fighter. The controls, if you can call them that, give you free rein to chose the combat style you want, with punches and kicks being your main moves, the game doesn't punish you for adding a little flare and coming up with a few fancy moves of your own. Quick movements to the left and right will move you around in game; this is the weakest part of the control system as it often has trouble identifying how far it should move you, resulting in a mismatch between how far you think you should move and how far the game actually moves you. Whilst there is no block ability, you can dodge incoming attacks by watching out for on screen prompts, awarding you with a points bonus if you are successful. A great feature we discovered was that the background removal can detect when you pick up items. This means that anything lying around your house can become an instant weapon in game (Although we recommend caution -Ed ). Combined with the fact that you're using the PlayStation Eye means that the colours and shape is accurately reflected in game, we can't describe how awesome it feels to beat up a group of ninja using a shopping bag!

The premise of Kung-Fu Live is simple. You find yourself looking after a comic book shop, when some thugs come in looking for trouble and then you accidentally break an ancient painting unleashed a dark evil across the city (it happens to the best of us). When we say yourself, we mean it literally as, in another impressive use of the PlayStation Eye, the game will insert you into the story of Kung-Fu Live. Before each cut-scene the game asks you to pose in various positions. An on-screen silhouette is drawn over the top of the camera so you can see roughly where you need to go. Once you have taken the required shots, the cut-scene will play, inserting you into the action. It's a neat effect and provides some light hearted humour at the end of a particularly challenging arena. You don't have to be line perfect with these poses and its often more fun to simply make up your own cool moves, resulting in some hilarious cut-scenes. The cut-scenes themselves are very cheesy short sequences, often lasting less and a minute or two. Anyway, after unleashing the aforementioned ancient evil, you find yourself going from fight to fight, taking out first street punks then ninjas then huge demons. As you progress you'll unlock chi power (read: special abilities) such as a speed attack, ground slam and a time stop. Each requires you to hold a particular position but often the game can fail to spot when you're in the appropriate position which is not what you want to happen when surrounded by a bunch of ninjas. The game also had trouble identifying when we tried to perform the somersault action, which was incredibly frustrating when it was the only move designed to get you out of trouble. This led to a few moments of anger when I became overwhelmed by the enemies descending upon me and I was desperately trying to jump out of danger.

We first spotted this in a tiny corner of the show floor at Gamescom, where it was certainly attracting quite the crowd. At some point in their childhood, every adult imagines themselves to be a kung-fu action hero and Kung-Fu Live certainly allows you to live out this fantasy. The game itself is an interesting blend of ridiculous martial arts and comic book style storytelling. Unfortunately it just can't live up to some of the feats it claims it's capable of; with lighting issues causing a number of issues. The tech behind Kung-Fu Live certainly isn't perfect but it doesn't need to be. Notwithstanding our previous comments, the game is incredibly responsive to your movements, with no lag whatsoever and you can't knock Virtual Air Guitar Company for breaking new ground. With no requirement for expensive hardware and the extremely tempting PSN price, Kung-Fu Live is definitely a step in the right direction.

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