Wednesday 23 Sep 2009

Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao, is a quality ‘little’ action platform game based in the rich, wonderful world of Chinese history, drawing on traditional wushu (kungfu) fighting styles, myths and legends as the prime source of inspiration, with elements of period-based kungfu movies for a bit of extra flair - from the screen overlay effects and music, to sound effects and the game’s general appearance.

Invincible Tiger plays out like an endurance, arena-based platformer, as opposed to something like a 2D side-scrolling Mario game, where players are constantly moving towards the edges of the screen. Instead, Invincible Tiger places players in different sets of arenas with set boundaries, as you fight off waves of various enemy types with kicks and punches, as well as special combinations of both.

Fighting intelligently is the key to success, so you’ll need to ensure that you’re only ever fighting a handful of enemies at a time, evading the others when necessary. Luckily, there are a few methods of escaping incoming blows from enemies, such as simply rolling past them, or jumping into an air-roll, with the flick of the right stick. Another method to rapidly escape the clutches of your opponents is by using special objects littered throughout the levels, such as flag poles that let you scurry up to a new level, doors that lead to another area, lines of rope leading to the next building, or by simply jumping up to, and down from, different levels.

Other special objects found in the levels can also help you use your environment to your advantage, such as specially placed buckets that you can kick at enemies, poles jutting out that you can use to swing and kick multiple enemies at once and other hazards that you can interact with in order to damage your foes.

As you fight and take down enemies, your Yin Yang meter will build up, which you can use to pull off special moves, or, if you’re low on health, meditate to use some of the Yin Yang meter to heal up, which introduces a nice bit of tension as you have to stand still while meditating, risking further damage from nearby enemies if you’re not careful.

During a given level, you’ll also be encouraged to find and collect ‘Evil Souls,’ which are usually in the possession of a tougher-than-normal enemy on the screen. Collecting Evil Souls will help your health regenerate, but you can also use these Evil Souls to power up a special attack by placing them on an idol. Collect three Evil Souls in this way, and you can unleash a bomb-like attack (much like an arcade top-down shooter) that erases all of the enemies on the level.

At the end of every level, which is split up into chapters, you face off against a boss that is naturally orders of magnitude more powerful than your usual run-of-the-mill enemy. Once defeated, you move on to the next level. If you die before the end of the level (using up all your lives, and being unable to buy any more lives with your points, which act as a ‘life currency’ in the game), you die for good, and are then forced to retry that level all the way from the beginning.

Fighting in Invincible Tiger is generally smooth, although the dodge manoeuvre, using the right stick, can be a little unresponsive seeing as how it’s a very quick, split-second kind of action – it may have worked better on another button, as you can sometimes get caught trying to dodge (when you’re supposed to be invulnerable to attack) when the action doesn’t work, exposing you to flurries of attacks from enemies.

Visually, all of the animations are nice and flowing, while art direction fits in perfectly with the theme of the game. Models and textures are a little low-res, even for the kind of game it is, but the aforementioned art direction smooths that away to barely noticeable.

Invincible Tiger is extremely feature rich, with a two-player co-operative mode (which, as expected, injects a new level of fun into the proceedings), an endurance mode (which tasks players with taking down as many enemies as possible before they themselves die) and a time trial mode (tasking players with surviving waves of enemies within a set time limit). There are also a host of extra unlockables that will definitely help you improve your skills, with lists of attack combinations, as well as enemy ‘cards’ – whenever you encounter an enemy in the game, you gain new information on that opponent type (of which there are a few), including their strengths and weaknesses, which helps you mix up your play style trying to adapt to each enemy on-the-fly.

The game is also very ‘points-based,’ which makes it a perfect game for Xbox LIVE Arcade’s Leaderboards, as you try to do better each round - Invincible Tiger isn’t really about progression, or even story progression despite the provision of a story mode. Invincible Tiger is more about improving your performance, earning more points, and pushing your skills as far as possible. As a result, the game is pretty difficult, and may just result in a few screams of frustration as you die just before completing a level.

Invincible Tiger also has a bit of a rough start, as the in-game story and tutorials aren’t exactly clear about proceedings, forcing you to read a not-inconsiderable amount of text to learn some of the finer points. After you’re all studied up, however, there aren’t any barriers to gaining a deeper understanding of the game through successive play sessions.

The biggest problem Invincible Tiger faces is its price – at 1200 MS Points (or $14.99 on the US PlayStation Store), it may seem a bit steep for gamers looking for a quick action fix, with other great games (such as Shadow Complex) competing for your attention at the same price, despite the feature-rich nature of the game.

Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao, is a quality ‘little’ action platform game, with a rich set of features, extensive gameplay modes and ways to learn and improve skills and performance, which leads to a deep, ever-developing experience, as you try to best your own abilities and techniques by scoring more points than previous level attempts, and compete for top place on the leaderboards – not to mention the opportunity to play with a friend either online or locally.

Pros: Feature-rich; fun pick-up-and-play approach; additional depth for those looking for it; ‘3D’ mode

Cons: Price; some control response issues; a little too difficult; no drop-in multiplayer; rough beginning

(Note: Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao is also available on the US PlayStation Network.)

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Contributor:	Oliver

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