Posted: 12-10-05 In: Reviews By: Munro2 |


If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about PC games recently, it’s that we’re continually being distanced from other players. Back when levels looked like they’d been clumsily tacked together out of cardboard, we’d run at each other with a whole array of crazy weapons, getting into the thick of it with rocket launchers, chainsaws and pretty much anything else that made a huge gaping hole wherever your crosshair was pointing. Nowadays however, with our shiny graphics cards that can process huge environments, we’re encouraged to submerge into the shadows and watch the world through our battered rifle scopes; finger poised over the mouse button to strike. Where is the physical contact? The glorious, honourable, enthralling dance of hand-to-hand combat? Well, if you’re willing to take a step on the slightly crazy side for once, and experience something original; it’s just about to smack you in the face in the form of Rag Doll Kung Fu.

Rag Doll Kung Fu, the unique fighting/platform game to recently leap from the imagination of Lionhead’s Mark Healey, is at the very least a breath of fresh air from the tense combat recreations in games of late. It’s fast paced, light hearted fun in which you can funnel all your anger and aggression into beating up puppets. In fact, the whole game centres around (as the name implies) these “rag doll” puppets; even your own character must be controlled by clicking and dragging their limbs with your mouse. You pull the strings, so to speak, for every action; from unleashing lethal kicks in a mid-air jump, to simply walking forward a few steps, everything requires you to master this original style.

Thankfully, it’s not nearly as hard as it sounds. While admittedly, when you first start playing, you’ll probably be completely stumped as how to get your character to walk forwards, let alone battle deadly ninjas with only your fists - but within a few minutes you’ll be throwing yourself around the levels, bouncing off objects and flailing your limbs like some sort of oriental combat-trained monkey hyped up on stimulants.

The gameplay, while extremely fast paced, requires a great deal of skill to master. Of most importance is to keep your “Chi” up- spiritual energy that determines the power of your moves; including how high you can jump or how hard you can hit. To keep your Chi flowing, all that’s needed is to move the mouse round in circles while you’re playing; which, while confusing at first, you’ll gradually learn to do instinctively as you pull limbs and power punches.

The environments of Rag Doll Kung Fu, as you will have probably seen from the screenshots, are wonderfully designed, multi layered two dimensional levels. However, what you can’t see in the screenshots is how they move; the sky changes from day to sunset to night as you play, a constantly merging palette of colours that gives variation to the atmosphere. Items can be snatched from the ground; ranging from nun chucks that have to be swung by controlling your character’s hand manually, to mushrooms that can be scooped up and eaten (which, in a true hippie style, allows you to fly free like a bird while gazing wide eyed at all the pretty colours). Of course, because a true Kung-Fu master is at one with nature, you can also snatch coloured butterflies from the environments which gives you the power of the elements to control at will, and a truly skilful player can use them to turn the tide of a battle. Yeah, I know it’s crazy, but it just works.

The single player “Story” mode is where you’ll develop most of these skills I’ve been mentioning, as you’re pulled through a colourful set of challenging levels. One of the problems with it though, is that it can feel little more than a tutorial at times, because just as you’ve finally mastered the basics of RDKF, it ends rather abruptly. Despite its relatively short length (only about three or four hours), the story mode makes up for this by featuring a series of hilariously funny hand-filmed video clips in-between levels. They follow your character as he learns the ways of Kung-Fu from his master, and goes on to rescue Ming Mong from the evil clutches of your arch nemesis …or something along those lines! Don’t expect wonderfully acted scenes or elaborate design as most of the videos have been filmed in a completely random park, with spontaneous actors and hilariously dire Chinese imitations. It all just adds to the tongue-in-cheek humour; believe me when I say you’ll enjoy a good laugh at the tongue-in-cheek humour throughout the cut scenes.

To prolong the single player experience, there are a number of extra games you can unlock, most of them centring on Olympic-style contests such as a high jump or a sprinting race. Unfortunately they’re of little real fun, and unless you’re dedicated to reach those high scores, the only mini-game that’s truly entertaining is a survival match against opponents where you have to use every ounce of skill in your body to thwart wave after wave of evil ninjas. As you can see, there aren’t too many single player activities which means it’s far more likely that once you’ve beaten the Story mode you’ll want to dive straight into the multiplayer action.

Ah, yes, the internet. This handy contraption will allow you to battle it out with up to eight people at a time, and you can reap the benefits of all the single player attractions; elemental butterflies, giant sized footballs, mentally damaging mushrooms… except this time you get the satisfaction of humiliating your mates at the same time. If you happen to be painfully unpopular, you can still learn a great deal simply by watching how other people play (and then humiliating them instead). There’s even a handy feature that allows you to customise your own character by importing custom-made skins! While the multiplayer aspect of RDKF won’t keep you entertained for hours on end unless you’re playing with friends you know, it’s certainly fun to dip in and out of it when you’re bored.

Now, while I’m sure loads of you will find Rag Doll Kung Fu to be an excellent game; I must stress that it’s not for everyone. The control system is extremely fiddly at first, and even when you become more adept, it can still be clumsy when you’re attempting a more delicate action (like picking up a mushroom) when you’re under pressure (from, say, five angry nun chuck wielding ninjas). Even if you do really take a shine to the controls, and end up being able to mould your body and style to any situation, like a true Kung-Fu master the game still has only a relatively short lifespan. But for seven quid, who’s complaining? Simply put; if you’re looking for some frivolous Kung-Fu action to play when you’re fed up of all the stressfully serious shooters out there; Rag Doll Kung Fu could be one for you.