Fighter Maker 2

From observance, we can see that most fighting games are fairly complex affairs, resulting from many hours of work on the part of the development staff, blending art, game play, and design. Usually, most of the work is, by its nature, invisible to the user, as we're presented with a game that's both easy to use, and fun to play. A while back, Agetec released Fighter Maker for the PSX, which allowed you to create a roster of your own fighters, complete with their own fighting styles, along with a fighting game in which to play with them.

Recreated for the PS2, this fighting game editor is finally resurrected for the next gen console arena. New graphics, fighters, fighting modes, and more are available, but are they really worth the price?

It's an editor, which automatically means that it's aiming at a somewhat specialized market. This obviously isn't the game for everyone. Also, as a game that's editor first, game second, it doesn't have that great of a fighting game built in, so enjoying the characters that you've created isn't all that entertaining. While it's packed with options, the editing itself is far from easy, made most clear by the difficult to manipulate camera controls. Add to this the fact that you can only save six characters on a single memory card, and you won't be designing any elaborate fighting games anytime soon. Sadly, it also features rather poor visuals, and nothing interesting in the sound department.

On the plus side, it comes absolutely stacked with features, from being able to change your characters general fighting style, all the way down to whether or not they like sporting a sun dress in the arena. Much like newer animation software for a computer, Fighter Maker 2 can take the beginning position of an attack that you've created from scratch, and the ending position that you've specified, and fill in all of the animation between those two points, automatically. The effect is tweening, and it makes animating in this style a hell of a lot easier. Combo editing is a matter of assigning moves to trees of combo possibilities, and is perhaps one of the only aspects of the game that's easy to use. If you're just thinking about taking it around the block once or twice, there are built-in fighting styles that you can base your work off of, like Tai Chi, Karate, Jeet Kune Do, and more.

All said, Fighter Maker 2 is still just an editor, with a fighting game tacked on. Since this isn't a traditional title, I've tried to properly highlight its lows and highs, but don't take my word for it. If it really sounds interesting, try playing around with it at least once or twice.

Youve violated Virtua Fighter, taught Tekken a lesson and bitch-slapped Bloody Roar. So what does a fighting gamer do next? Why, he makes his own brawler, of course! The sequel to the cult-fave PSi title, Fighter Maker 2 provides gamers with the tools to create their own 3D fighting game. Customize your fighters every last detail, choosing from over 260 body parts and 600 pre-designed moves (you can create your own, too). And if youre one of the hardcore who owns the original FM, dust off that copy and download an additional 800 moves into FM2.