FaceFighter Review

Bob | 07/28/2009 | 1 comment

When I buy a game the first thing I want to know is if I had fun or not with it. It doesn’t matter about look or sound of the game, and even poor controls can be forgotten if I had fun for a few minutes while playing. Even a few minutes of laughs is good enough for a buck.

Which brings me to FaceFighter from Appy Entertainment. From the very beginning I had a smile on my face and even sitting by myself in a hotel room I started laughing after just a few minutes. I knew I couldn’t wait to get home and show this to my kids. Which actually means I’ll have a lot of explaining to do because I’ve been beating the crap out of them!

Let me explain…

In FaceFighter you battle a foe in some sort of bizarre martial arts match. This is done with four buttons; punch right, punch left, kick, and block. Timing the button pressing will do everything you need to land blows and blocks. Yes, I know, it sounds like a pretty basic game, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

What sets FaceFighter apart is the presentation, which is far and above what you’d expect from someone just asking for a buck. The person you’re fighting looks very realistic. This is because of the fluid use of video and still photography. There’s a bit of a “Mortal Kombat” feel to the way it’s presented – only better. The look gives you a nice feeling of fighting an actual person.

And taking that further is that fact that you can make that “actual person” and “actual person”. You can drop in any photo to the face of the fighter and that’s where the laughs really start. I was amazed at how good the face actually looked on the body. I was expecting something way cheesy, but got something much more polished. The face will even show damage from the hits and I have to tell you that it’s fun to see the face of someone you know suddenly missing some teeth.

The sounds and music in the game are also really good. Anyone who has played Word Fu knows how fun martial arts sound effects can be in a game, but FaceFighter kicks it up a notch. You’ll hear the kinds of sounds that Jackie Chan only wished he could have in his movies. There’s also some great music and gong effects throughout the game. It really added to the overall effect of the game.

I went through round after round without stopping. I’m also looking forward to taking some pictures of other people to add to my foes list.

There are different levels in the fighting in the game, but I have to admit that doesn’t mean there’s a lot of strategy in the game. In the end FaceFighter is still basically a button masher. Luckily, it’s a fun button masher. I don’t know if the fun will last over the long haul, but it’s great for now.

FaceFighter still has a few things that could make it even better and possibly add to the replay factor. For one, adding a global scoreboard and a few achievements would help things out.

I also think that FaceFighter is made for something like Facebook. It would be fun to show the pictures of your friends with all the bruises and broken teeth on your page. And think of how fun it would be to send a picture like that to your friend… consider it handing down a challenge.

There’s even a Lite version to try out, but for a buck, and the ability to fight all of your friends, I’d suggest the full version.

As I stated at the beginning, when playing a game the main thing I want to know is that I’m going to have fun. The other stuff doesn’t matter. I’m really glad that “the other stuff” did matter to Appy. With FaceFighter I get all the fun I can handle and it looks and sounds great. Now I just have to think of how I’m going to explain what I’ve been doing to my family.

The Good

Fast & Fun
Beat Up Your Friends… Legally
Great Graphics & Sound

The Bad

Still A Bit Of “Button Masher”
No Global Scoreboard
Could Use Something Like Facebook Integration.