The reigning king of 2-D fighters finally joins the club and gets their first 3-D fighting game out to the market. Star Gladiator came out recently in the arcades in Japan and this quick Playstation release should help to bombard the market so that Star Gladiator is on the tips of everyone's tongue. Hm, good strategy if you can afford it. The fact that a Playstation version is available will basically kill the business for arcade vendors who in turn could start a boycott of all things Capcom. Of course, this is not likely, especially with the recent release of X-Men vs Street Fighter and the upcoming release of Street Fighter EX. Operators should make up their loss of revenue from Gladator with these two new productions from Capcom many times over. Along with the Japanese release, we are expecting the USA version of Star Gladiator this Friday so indeed, Star Gladiator will be the fighting game of the hour thanks to its widespread availability in the arcades, in Japan and in the States. Now all they need is a Saturn version and Capcom will own the world.

Star Gladiator starts off with the mandatory introduction demo which takes a look at the characters in the game. Its a slick looking montage of video clips of the different characters in action. There are ten characters in all and the action takes place sometime in the far-off future where there appears to be a threat from outer space and ten heroes are assembled to combat this threat. I'm sure the storyline for Star Gladiator is more interesting than what I've related but lets get to the action in the game. In the time that I had with the game before we had to get this article out, I found the game to be a very competent fighting game with smooth animation and a solid feel of quality. You can usually tell if a game is worthy or not in the first few minutes of playing it and checking it out. This was the case with SG; the controls are dead-on and everything just feels right. I'm sure many game players felt this way when they first laid their eyes and hands on Tekken. Star Gladiator is embued with a lot of the features that can be found in other fighting games. From Toshinden, Star Gladiator borrows the rolling move where you press the top L or R buttons to dodge your opponent's attack; your character can also dodge attacks without doing a full roll by simply taking a step to the left or right but your opponent can quickly reverse his attack and then strike you in your new position after your baby step. Star Gladiator also borrows the counter move from some current fighting games where you can reverse an opponents attack right back against him. I used Hayato throughout my little Star Gladiator excursion, mainly because he was the first choice on the selection screen. Hayato looks like a descendant of Ryu with his somber demeanor and 'style'. He carries a light saber which sounds very much like the weapon of Star Wars fame when he slashes away. The rich, reasonant sound of the light saber's swing was very convincing and helped to assure me that I was wielding a powerful weapon. One cool effect in Star Gladiator is the lighting of your characters when you connect for a hit. For example, if you strike at an opponent with a weapon that glows, you will see your character light up on the side facing the blow with the radiance from the attack. This was fine attention to detail on Capcom's part. The graphics in Star Gladiator are very good and each punch or kick can unleash sparks or rings of illumination which is similar to what you see in Tekken when you hit someone. Some of the special moves that the characters can execute are very impressive to look at and many players will be pleased as punch to discover them. June's special moves and attacks are particularly brilliant (literally) and many of the other characters have similar illuminating attacks. The gameplay is well done and sitting down and exploring the gameplay and the characters in the game gave me a good sense of the time and effort that Capcom has invested in Star Gladiator. The product glows with quality. Capcom will probably have many more 3-D fighters coming out in the next couple of months and if this first offering is any indication, we're in for some great 3-D fighting games from the king of 2-D.

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