Wow. I do not think you could possibly sum it up any more than Greg Miller did for his “Infinite World” review over on IGN:
Do not play Dragon Ball Z: Infinite World.
They have given it a 3.5 (out of 10). If you tune in to our latest podcast episode, you will hear from our end that we certainly do not feel like it is anywhere near that level. Since this is such a huge discrepancy, let u’s take a couple points from Greg’s review and see how he arrived at the final score.
It’s not that fighting is broken in this fighter; it’s just that it’s really boring. You’ll tap buttons like mad, and end up just firing off fireballs.
Very interesting, especially when you consider the scores given to games like “Budokai 3” (8.0), “Shin Budokai 2” (7.7), and “Burst Limit” (7.9). Granted, these were all written by different reviewers at the site, but that is a pretty huge difference when you take into consideration the fact that the fighting mechanics in all four games are essentially the same (with some tune-ups and changes here and there, of course).
These events aren’t fun, and they certainly don’t make me feel like I’m playing the anime. Did I miss the episode when floating hexagons descended on the world?
This I can get behind. As you can hear in the podcast episode, I was not hugely fond of the new “mini-games” and how they all essentially played the same clunky way each time.
When Goku’s deployed to learn how to block, three fractions are put at the bottom of the screen to represent how many times you have to do each type of block in the allotted amount of time. Oddly, the game never tells you how to do these blocks or which fraction is counting which type of block. You just have to leap around and try to figure out what the hell the game wants.
I both understand where Greg is coming from on this, and take major issue with it at the same time. The game does not tell you in an obvious way what your goals are and how to do them, but if you click through before you start the mission, there absolutely is a screen that explains how to do all three of those types of blocks.
Honestly, it does not seem like Greg played much of the game beyond the Saiyan arc when you consider that most of the text involving the rest of the game is essentially a rehash of marketing speak about the game known beforehand and right on the box itself. That is not to say I am defending “Infinite World” to any insane degree, but it may warrant a much closer look than Greg and IGN were willing to give it.
GamePro gave it an equally-interesting 2-out-of-5, and we are still waiting for a bunch of the other big sites to dish out their official reviews.
In other “Infinite World” news, Game Trailers is hosting a very interesting trailer for the game called “Best of Budokai Trailer“. It is pretty well done, including the mention of Hironobu Kageyama music that enthralled us so much on the back of the box. What is really interesting, however, is the obvious mix of game sources used to create it. Beta versions, Japanese version, and final American version can all be seen!