Breakers

Killer Instinct, Fighters History, and Clay Fighters may be imitating Street Fighter II, but Breakers not only imitates it, but does it really well.

It's a double edged sword though. The potential here is completely unused, which perhaps is the most irritating thing about this game. If the creators had set down to create a stand alone game this could have been one of the best 2D fighting games ... but instead we have programmers too interested in ripping off a proven game.

As fighting games go, Breakers is a damn good one. It unleashes a number of characters you normally wouldn't expect to see in the game ... coupled with a few obvious clich?s. The game is loaded with character, and one character, Pielle, rips off a certain masked crusader named Zorro so much that he even uses the "Z" swing as a special move (can I smell a lawsuit?). Another character, Sho, is so similar to Ryu (or Ryo for that matter) that I'm surprised he doesn't yell out "shiruken" and "hudoken" when he does moves.

The levels aren't extremely interesting, either. Don't get me wrong, they aren't bad, but as good as the game play is, the rest of the game is something of a let down. I guess I'm just amiss do to the appalling similarities to other fighting games. Who knew you could get so close ... but still be so far away?