Score
Gameplay:	3
Graphics:	8
Sound:	3
FunFactor:	5
PlasmaFactor:	5
Overall:	4.8

Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus Review
January 26, 2004 by Jody

by Jody - January 26, 2004

As a fighter for either the Pale Lotus or Black Mantis sects, you�re thrown into the storyline. Each side has six fighters, and each fighter must collect the pieces of an artifact that, when all brought together, will allow them passage to the South Pole, where they can visit the immortal Shou-Tsing. But thanks to an extraordinary number of pre-match voiceovers, the story between each character is fleshed out and brought to life in a fashion not unlike that of a soap opera; at any rate, it gives the player enough reason to want to complete everything in the quest mode, and it doesn�t become tired anywhere near as quickly as the storylines of other fighting games.

Why is there a limb system?

One of the key features that Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus was to bring to the table was the way in which limb damage would be worked into the fights. In fact, the whole of Tao Feng�s innovation was based around this; that a limb worn down during a battle would be less effective if wounded or broken. While it could�ve been revolutionary, quite honestly, the 1996 Square fighter Bushido Blade handles this much better. The only change that occurs when a limb is damaged, besides an melodramatic cutscene that only interrupts the flow of a fight, is that attacks performed by the damaged limb do 50% less damage. But whatever revolution this system could bring about is scrapped to the sideline when you realize that this change is minor and ineffective; little is more frustrating then realizing that, after finally incapacitating someone�s arm, they�re still able to pull off a seven-hit combo that can probably rob you of the match.

Part of what was so intriguing about Tao Feng is the fact that John Tobias, the co-creator of Mortal Kombat, was the driving force behind the new Xbox fighter. With a heritage like that, you�d expect some innovative gameplay aspects that not only affect how you play the game, but also how much you enjoy it. In both practice and theory, Tao Feng delivers on that assumption.

Tao Feng includes a new facet to the fighting genre in which limbs actually take damage, which then affects a character�s performance. Repeatedly take shots to the arm, for example, and you�ll first get a Limb Damage Alert, followed by a Limb Damage Warning, followed ultimately by a broken bone or equally painful boo-boo. The result of this damage is almost always a 50-percent reduction in the strength of your punches. The same holds true with leg damage; take enough hits, and your kicks will lose half their power.

The A.I. in Tao Feng is rather brutal, particularly in the later matches, and fighting too aggressively yourself will more often than not leave you bloody on the ground and crying for your ba-ba. As a result, you�ll find yourself making generous use of defensive motions and blocking to no end. Problem is, blocking too often makes you more susceptible to limb damage, which forces you into playing somewhat aggressively if you want to be on the giving, rather than receiving end of the pain. This essentially puts you in a gameplay Catch-22: you need to block to survive, but blocking makes your limbs break, which in turn means you can�t survive for too long. Hope you like having the cards stacked against you.

Controlling your character throughout these "rigged" matches is very old-school fare. For starters, you move using the D-pad, and blocking is accomplished by pressing the D-pad away from your opponent (similar to the old Street Fighter games). Rather than high and low punches and kicks, each character has trailing and leading punches and kicks. As you�d expect, these are different in both power and speed, which therefore makes them more or less effective in counter blows and tight spots. Combos are also in full force, with each character having 100-plus unique moves. Your timing has to be absolutely perfect, though, to get the six-button combos to work. And nine times out of 10, regardless of your fighting prowess or double-jointedness, your timing will be wrong.

Speaking of wrong, why do publishers insist on putting a plot in their fighting games? People go to see action movies for the explosion, not the exposition, and the same thing is generally true with fighting fans. The story of Tao Feng: You�re in a gang. You�re trying to gain control of a tablet to bargain with the gods for immortality. A rival gang has the tablet, so you beat them up. The End.

The only nice part about this game.

Here is one of the game�s shining points, and it shines bright. Tao Feng makes use of its status as an X-Box exclusive, and the game is tweaked appropriately. The character designs are fantastic, and there�s enough bounce in the female fighters, ahem, to please the DOA crowd. This is bolstered by a fairly remarkable damage modeling system. Set up a five-round fight and slug it out for the duration, and your once-pretty fighter picks up bruises, cuts and scratches, at least somewhat deglamorizing the 3-D fighter genre. And while the control doesn�t benefit the large levels, each level design is distinct and well rendered. There�s one particularly effective graphic in the Metro-China stages, in which rain will start to fall mid-fight and lighting will strike, temporarily removing the life and Chi bars from the screen. It�s a subtle technique, but a nice one, and Tao Feng is filled with many nice graphical touches such as this one.

Was that an bone snaping? I couldn't tell...

Simple. I�d like to end this section with that one word, but that would leave you wondering why. Let me explain, then, the painful audio of Tao Feng: Two actors grunting into an empty soup can, with you as a flea sitting in the bottom. The tinny echo that would reverberate around your head pretty much sums up the sounds you�ll hear most often. I didn�t believe other reviewers� comments until I played the game myself. Seriously, Tao Feng sounds like it was recorded in a corrugated metal shed. As for the narrator who tries to piece-meal together a story, he bears a striking audio resemblance to The Sphinx from the movie "Mystery Men." Honestly, what�s the point of a narrator who sums up every one of your losses with the sentence "You must continue, or our journey together has ended"? And no, the comments don�t get any better or less inane.

 

I wish I could break my arm and continue to fight.

I would like to decide this PlasmaFactor to John Tobias. Without him, this horrible game would not have been created. To go from making clean pure energetic Mortal Kombat games to creating a game with a lot of hype and stupidity � John Tobias has certainly dropped in the rankings of game design. I don�t know exactly why he quit Midway to work on this game, but I guess since he thought it was a good idea, it had to be. To sum up what I am trying to say � TAO FENG REALLY SUCKS! It�s pretty uncool how I can snap someone�s arm and leg and still get beat by them. At one point, on the last level of the hardest difficulty, I broke the computer�s arm then leg, but at the last second, they pulled a ten hit combo and kicked my ass. I was pissed. Because of stuff like this, Tao Feng is not a good game. In fact, it�s very far from that.

 

Go play something else.

I wanted to like this game. I wanted to love this game. I wanted to raise this game to the heavens and proclaim that John Tobias had created yet another astounding fighter. Now I just want those hours of my life back. Tao Feng has some fantastic concepts in its real-time damage system and the influence limb damage has on actual gameplay. It�s just that those concepts don�t congeal to form a good game.

As much as I doubt most gamers will truly enjoy Tao Feng, I simultaneously hope enough people buy it that Microsoft and Studio Gigante see fit to create a sequel. I have no doubt that a sequel could improve upon most of the gameplay and other problems plaguing this first outing. Until that time, though, you�re better off avoiding this game entirely.