Game Overview
Virtua Fighter serves up some mightily impressive gameplay and some even better graphics. Never before have we seen a fighting game look so damn sexy. It's smooth, there appears to be no slow down at all, the colours on costumes and scenery are vibrant and lively, and the realism of everything is second to none. The game really does look outstanding.

As we briefly mentioned above, the gameplay is quality! Beat em' ups are usually quite hit and miss (excuse the pun) however Virtua Fighter has most definitely hit, in fact, it's not just hit, it's beaten (whatever it is it's beating) to the ground and then some! The smoothness of the characters movements whilst taking part in combat is astounding, long gone are the days of Old Skool 2D fighters restricting you to the size of your screen!

Arenas have some very exotic locations around the world from snow covered landscapes (where the snow actually disappears and moves as you fight on it) to Waterfalls and Canyons. The scenery animation is fantastic and in most cases you'll find yourself fighting in some kind of cage which you can interact with to pull of some breath taking combos.

Which brings us on to our next point, Combos? This is where the depth of the game takes you by surprise. Never have you seen so many combo moves in your entire life! To learn and master them all with all 17 characters is quite frankly just short of impossible, however, it does offer up a lot of variety throughout the game, ensure you'll never have the same fight twice, which is quite handy because if you get the bug of playing online you'll never want to go to sleep/work/social events......it really is that good.

We can honestly only find one big problem with VF5 and that is the English Dubbing, what a mess that is! We really had to ask ourselves what the point of it was. Sound effects can sometimes be a little exaggerated and the voice acting is at best average. The saving grace for the sound on VF5 is that you don't buy fighting games for the story line and the voice acting. It does however add to the arcade feel that is very noticeable throughout the game, so 6 of one, half a dozen of the other!

Our Conclusions
Sega have churned out a brilliant game in Virtua Fighter 5, with 17 characters, 100's of combos to master, loads of different arenas, online play and a fair few single player modes, the beat em' up fans amongst you will be really impressed and have mroe than enough to last you for quite some time. If you own a 360 of PS3 we would highly recommend getting a copy of Virtua Fighter 5.

Overall Score: 9/10

Thanks to Sega and Kazoo