GamesRelay

Name: Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao

Namco Bandai Games have gone old school on your posterior with their game Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao, not only have they brought developers Blitz Arcade's latest game to the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live but they've brought back the old favourite game style of a 2D neat 'em up back to life - kicking and screaming in true fashion. As if they weren't satisfied bringing all that, they've done it all in 3D! (The first 3D game on the PSN or XBL to be exact.)

Invincible Tiger sees you take control of Han Tao, or the General of a Thousand Victories to give him his proper title. You control Han as he uses his Kung Fu fighting style to battle his way through the armies of an Evil Overlord over the course of six different stages; each of these stages comprises of multiple levels in the form of balconies and trees to jump up onto and of course off again, other levels bring you other things to practice your Kung Fu acrobatics on and over the course of the game you'll fight in Ancient Chinese Fortresses and Pirate Ships in your quest to find the Star of Destiny.

The game is presented to you with a 1970's style; it's very reminiscent of the Kung Fu films from that era with the dress style and the theatrics of the characters animations, even the soundtrack will have you feeling the funk as the characters do their moves to the swishing and swooshing a kick or a punch will produce. Control of the characters is very simple indeed, you've got one button for kick and one for punch which takes care of the fighting, you've also got the ability to jump or dodge your opponent, all done with typical 70's Kung Fu flamboyance. The kicks and punches can all be strung together into a series of combo moves, though, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work them all out and it's all a fun affair. You can also interact with various parts of the scenery to differing degrees, some parts will help you escape your attackers and some will help you attack, trees can be climbed by their branches providing something to hold onto as you kick someone in the face, or barrels can be picked up and flung at an opponent running in your direction with a less than happy expression on his face.

As mentioned earlier, this game can also be played in 3D as well as the normal 2D approach, the 3D is provided in two ways, the classic Red / Blue or Red / Green offsets which can only be viewed with a pair of special 3D glasses. This again would remind us of the 70's 3D cinematic experiments if it wasn't for the recent surge in 3D films about to hit the cinema, or if you're posh and have one of those fancy DLP TV's that can show you Stereoscopic 3D then you've an option for that as well. We at GamesRelay towers don't have one of those so we had to settle for the standard 3D which seemed to work quite well apart from the fact you had to wear the funky glasses. Don't worry if you haven't got a pair of the glasses lying around, you can apply for two to be sent to you from the games official site, so, no problems there. The 3D effect is the only thing that makes the graphics stand out really, (See what I did there?) they serve there purpose well enough for this type of game, especially when you consider it's 70's styling, but, the bad guys do get a bit repetitive in there appearance quickly, even the bosses appear the same after a little while. On the whole it would have been good to see a bit more variation here but it's nothing too distracting.

As well as the story mode you've got an Endurance mode and a Time Trial mode to work your way through, the Endurance mode is how it sounds with countless enemy warriors trying to pummel you until eventually one wins out; the Time Trial mode sees you trying to complete the games levels as quickly as possible. There is also a multiplayer mode in which you can team up with a friend and battle your way through to the Evil Overlord, though, it was to be said that it isn't without its problems on the PlayStation Network as it suffers incredibly with the voice comms which leave much to be desired. Again, the problem with the lack in variety in the graphics again comes into play as the main player characters are identical apart from a slight colour change in their outfit, not a major problem but it does highlight this even more.

Invincible Tiger is a small and fun title to play, we're not too keen on the asking price ($14.99/£10 on PSN and 1200 MS Points on XBL) but, if you're a fan of old school beat 'em ups and fancy a trip down memory lane then you could do far worse than spend your money on this to whittle away a few hours.