Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari
Release Date: 4-19-1996
The other day I was thinking about bands who ended their careers on a low note. I’m thinking of bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival whose final album, Mardi Gras, saw John Fogerty barely participating and instead featured Doug Clifford’s bland country rock and Stu Cook’s angry gargle of a voice. Or how about The Clash’s infamous Cut the Crap which saw Joe Strummer trying and failing to get back to basics awash in a sea of keyboards, drum machines, and anonymous back-up singers. These albums are so bad that they’re practically disowned by fans and creators. Most people will tell you that the final Velvet Underground album is the classic Loaded when it is technically the album Squeeze. Hey, want to hear a Velvet Underground album that only features their second bassist? Neither did anyone else. Even the Beatles couldn’t get it quite right. For their final statement they created the masterpiece Abbey Road with one of the all-time perfect second sides. It would be the perfect last album if not for the fact that they released the difficult-to-make, band destroying Let it Be eight months later. Still most people consider Abbey Road their final album no matter what the truth actually is. My point is that bands don’t usually break up when all is well. They more commonly end when everything is falling apart. Atari was in a similar situation in 1996. Unable to compete in a world with PlayStation and Nintendo 64 they were out of options and finally had to close up shop for good. However, they still needed to recoup whatever money they could get. That brings us to Fight for Life. Although the Atari name would live on and Jaguar would still be supported by Telegames for a while, Fight for Life ended up being the final game released by the original Atari Corporation. One would hope that Atari would go out with dignity or at least something passably fun. Sadly, this was not to be the case. Fight for Life is the perfect example of a company limping to the finish line. But it’s a 3D fighter, right? Doesn’t that count for something?
(Yes, it is funny that this game is from 1996 and the character's name is Pog)
Strangely, the fact that it was a 3D fighter somehow got it some decent reviews back in 1996. It makes me wonder if their reviews stopped at the box art. How could anyone play this game and not see it as a total disaster? I like to be thorough in these reviews and play the games for a significant period of time. When Playing Fight for Life I kept looking at the clock and wondering how long was long enough. It is one of the most boring games I have ever played. It should’ve come with a Fight for Life branded blanket and sleeping cap because playing it instantly makes me tired. It’s the slowest a fighting game could possibly be without the two characters being completely stationary. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to make a game go slower. You really gotta be ready to inch along and spam some moves at the outset. You are able to steal the moves of defeated opponents, but in the beginning you are basically just slowly kicking and punching. Normal attacks do very little damage, so you’re going to be there for a while. If you’re lucky you can land some jump kicks, but the move is tricky to pull off. There’s no clock, so rounds can last several minutes. It’s just as well because if the clock lasted a typical 60-90 seconds than every match would end in a damage-free draw. This is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but it doesn’t feel that way when I’m playing. It feels like every round lasted ten minutes with victory only achieved because the other fighter died of old age. But no, I really did play this game, and I really did fight my opponent until they were knocked over, and it didn’t take so long that I had a ZZ Top beard by the end of it. The rounds were probably more like 2-3 minutes each, but when they’re so slow and boring they feel like an eternity.
The finished product definitely reflects the troubled history behind Fight for Life. The development cycle was almost as long as the Jaguar’s lifespan, and employee turnover was high. There was plenty of meddling on Atari’s end and unrealistic goals on the developer’s side. I highly doubt it was actually finished when it was finally turned in, but Atari didn’t have any more time to wait. None of the Jaguar’s strengths are on display in Fight for Life despite it being one of the last games for the console. The character designs are boring and chunky while the graphics are spare and generic. It’s just a big, empty square with maybe some hazy buildings far off in the distance. If you wander too close to the edge of the square you will get electrocuted, but this electric barrier is merely implied. They couldn’t put in a rope or fence to indicate a border? That would at least be something to look at. Image a game so bad that I wished I was looking at a rope. That’s Fight for Life. Even most of the stinkers on Jaguar had good graphics. Atari Karts might’ve been a bit dull, but the backgrounds were almost distractingly good. Even Club Drive was more detailed, and the graphics in that game were almost completely comprised of blocks of cheddar cheese. Fight for Life truly is a failure on every level. The best thing to do with Fight for Life is to play it with your friends for a half hour and then spend the next ten years talking about how bad it is. At least in that case you can take comfort in the fact that you have friends.
Like so much that Atari tried to do past gaming’s second generation, Fight for Life is a disaster. It’s long been a game that has gotten merciless reviews, and for once I have to agree with snarky internet commentators. In fact I think I became one just for this review. Hopefully I can snap out of it, but Fight for Life changes a person. In fact I think I’ll take the Velvet Underground route and just pretend like it doesn’t exist at all. What was the game they released right before it? Oh, Attack of the Mutant Penguins. Well maybe I’ll go even further back. Hey, Ruiner Pinball was pretty good. That’s now the game that will live in my brain as the final original Atari release. At least it will be until I have to review all the other games. Life isn’t easy for an obsolete technology reviewer. So it’s no surprise that Fight for Life is going low on the list. It’s the bottom Jaguar game, and it may stay that way for a long time. It’s #135 out of #145 overall which honestly a little higher than I expected. All things considered it’s still a better fighting game that Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robots. I swear that someday I will review a good fighting game, but until then bring on the dregs. I can handle it.
Jaguar Quality Percentage: 1/6 or 16.67%
No comments:
Post a Comment