Fighter Within

Introduction

Filling out the shooter-heavy launch library on the Xbox One is the 'Fighter Within.' It's likely that the initial concept for Ubisoft's 'Fighter Within' was designed to showcase the Kinect's ability to track motion in games using enhanced sensors. Developed by Dakota, the game puts the player in control of Matt Gilford, a street fighter that's attempting to improve his repertoire of fighting moves. So not only is the 'Fighter Within' one of the few fighting games for the new console, but it's also a test of the new Kinect as well as game with an included promise of active, exercising play.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

Conceptually, the game is supposed to walk you through various fighting styles and copy the player's movements using the Kinect. In reality, it's anything but that. By the way, it's the spiritual successor to Ubisoft's poorly reviewed 'Fighters Uncaged,' an early attempt to showcase the original Kinect on the Xbox 360.

Jumping into the core game, the player is immediately shuffled into the Initiation story mode. It's basically a two hour tutorial mode that walks the player through the basics of fighting. Played over the course of twenty-one matches, the narrative is molded around a vague quest that's supposed to lead to a book written by Genghis Khan that contains ancient, mysterious fighting techniques that only the player can unlock. Of course, the story doesn't really go anywhere and seems like an annoying backdrop to the overall experience.

One of the more annoying aspects of the game, attempting to navigate the menu system with Minority Report style of sliding screens around is just pointless. I can't tell you how many times that I cursed the screen when the on-screen cursor didn't perform the action that I requested. You have to default back to the controller, there's really no way around it. Ultimately, this breaks up any attempt of control fluidity that the developer was going for.

Sadly, the controls only improve slightly within the actual matches. While the game does do a decent job of walking the player though the moves, different types of punches and kicks are often misread by the game. Early on, the game also forces you to learn these moves and it can get quite frustrating when the game isn't registering an action you are performing over and over. At some point, it's gets so frustrating that you will be satisfied with flailing your appendages around in order to register anything on-screen.