There are a lot of fighting games out there and they have been around for some time, some building successful franchises. Fresh into this gaming arena comes Girl Fight from developer Kung Fu Factory.

The game does have the slimiest of back stories, with a shadowy organisation called the FOUNDATION, capturing women, making them fight in a virtual reality. That said, this is not really explained in the game and so the voice overs feel more like an abusive parent, accusing you of being pathetic, amongst other things.

So, you get to play one of a number of nubile young ladies, it seems that the FOUNDATION is only interested in kidnapping busty, scantily clad young women with a penchant for displaying their underwear. In order to be released you have to win against you opponents using both your physical and psionic abilities. As you work your way through the battles you win points and what do points make? Yup, upgrades.

Control of the game is easy to pick up with the usual kick, punch, defence and grab assigned to buttons, with the psionic abilities relegated to the shoulder pads. The controls feel a little less responsive to its competitors, but overall they work well.

The graphics are a bit of a mixed bag, some of the girls are well realised with a nice level of detail, whereas others are more cartoony. Each of the girls has their own special moves and abilities although when playing it doesn’t seem to make a great deal of difference in the outcome and defeating your opponents lacks a certain level of challenge. I beat the first round of girls by just continually kicking them. The kicks and other attacks can be controlled with the left joystick allowing you to hit high or low.

Strip away the sexualised graphics and what you have is an ok fight game, but nothing which really places it in a different level to its competition. There are a number of different ways of playing the game including an online challenge. There was a long list of players listed in the leaderboard, but no one actually playing when I reviewed the game.

So, great if you want to see scantily clad girls kicking the death out of each other, but there are slicker fighting games out there.

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Charles Packer