Being a huge fan of the chop sockey movies that appear only on late night TV the appeal of Invincible Tiger instantly grabbed my attention. But how does this beat-em-up fare with other greats like Turtles Arcade on the marketplace?

 

From the initial loading you are thrust into a well imagined classic Kung-Fu movie, there is a crinkly effect on the screen giving the impression of a backstreet movie theatre and the music perfectly replicates what you would expect from some Bruce Lee classics. The games story is also cheesy as hell, you play as Han Tao, a drunken protector of a temple that holds the all powerful Star of Destiny. A team of ninjas and assassins attack the temple to gain control of a mighty stone warrior army and it's up to Han to sober up and take it back.

 

 

Each of the 6 chapters are placed over a large platform based level, where Han can jump from rooftops, run through corridors and into the outdoors, all the while fighting off loads of varied enemies.

 

Being a Kung-Fu master Han has a few tricks up his sleeves, if taking a battering he can go into meditation with the LB, allowing him to regain some vitally lost energy. The punch and kick mechanics allow you to pull off simple three hit combos that you can link to make even larger combos, allowing you to pull off multiple hits, earn high scores and even extra lives. Han is able to dodge and duck with the RS and also interact with certain environments with the B button like throwing barrels and buckets to running up walls. With every successful attack and evade Hans Yin Yang meter will increase and once full allows you to trigger his Hyperstate with the RT, making Han go super fast and increasing the combos significantly.

 

The main story does not take too long to play through; there is however a time attack mode with high scores to play against, an endurance mode with a never ending supply of enemies coming at you and a nifty co-op mode.

 

 

So far it’s a pretty standard affair but what most of us of heard about this game is not really about the gameplay but that it is one of the first 3D games to use Digital Stereoscopic 3D technology. Not having the kind of cash that is needed to use this setting it is hard for me to review this part (however our editor Joe has seen it running and says that it seems to work quite well). The clever team at Blitz Arcade have also put in a standard Anaglyph 3D mode so anyone who has been to the cinema of late, fish out those old red and green specs and take this for a spin. OK so the colours are not as vibrant and you do tend to get a headache with long spells of play but apart from that it works really well as all of the characters and certain parts of the environments leap out of the screen making the game look awesome.

 

Sadly this game offers little more than style over quality. Whilst it looks and sounds great the game is really just a simple little beat-em-up. It will be interesting to see where 3D games go in the future but I feel that at the moment they offer nothing more than a distraction rather than offering any new element of gameplay.