Burton's Bytes: Fighting talk from new PlayStation title

WHAT a surprise to find such a high profile beat 'em up arriving so late in the PlayStation's life.

My hopes for Capcom Vs SNK Pro were high. After all some of the best fighting games of all arrived very late in the Sega Saturn's career, even if UK fans were denied their charms unless they resorted to personal imports.

Of course this slugfest has already appeared over here where it was one of the last titles published for the Sega Dreamcast.

It's the ultimate team-up, pitting 15 characters from the insanely popular Streetfighter series against 15 from SNK's less well known (in this country at least) King of Fighters and Fatal Fury games.

The arcade mode has an interesting strategic element - your characters are allotted points, ranging from three for a boss to one for some of the more puny pugilists. At the start of each bout you have four points to "spend" on your fighters. Do you go for one super powerful boss, four single point characters or a combo somewhere in-between? It's up to you.

Other modes restrict your choice to just two characters and in single player mode your points tally is put towards power/attack upgrades.

Fans of fighting games will appreciate the game gallery and tinkerers will spend hours in the colour edit mode where the look of your favourite characters can be tweaked to your own taste.

Even when it was new PlayStation was never a killer 2-D gaming machine; the main reason why the Saturn became home to countless SNK/Capcom games and not the Sony. Nothing much has changed in the intervening seven years.

Capcom reckons this title squeezes every ounce of sprite pushing power from the PlayStation. There's no denying the generous-sized characters look better than earlier PSOne Streetfighter titles.

Of course, there's only so much to be done with the PlayStation's limited memory and anyone who has played the Dreamcast version of this game will notice some differences. Whether or not these bother you depends on how sharp-eyed you are - the backgrounds are missing some detail and the special effects don't look quite so, err, special this time around.

That aside, the game plays with the same solid control we've come to expect of a Capcom fighting title. It's probably pointless comparing the two versions anyway. After all, no one would buy FIFA on the PSOne and expect it to measure up to the X-Box title of the same name. Would they?

Instead let's rejoice in the fact that games like this are still appearing on a platform that is positively antediluvian compared to its more modern brethren. And at less than twenty quid it's hardly going to break the bank.

We have four copies of Capcom Vs SNK Pro to give away. To win answer this easy question: how many characters are there in the game? Send your answers to: Byte SNK Comp, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF. Closing date 1 August.

FREEDOM FORCE. Publisher: Electronic Arts. Format: PC CD ROM. Price: £29.99.

LONG before Streetfighter Marvel and DC Comics fed the fertile imaginations of young readers caught up in tales of superheroism.

Comic book heroes have never been more popular, thanks mainly to the remarkable success of the long-delayed Spiderman movie.

So Crave Entertainment and EA must be breathing a huge sigh of relief that Freedom Force is about to hit the market at exactly the right time.

It's not a straightforward comic book adaptation, more of a knowing satire crafted by nostalgic programmers who grew up with Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. If this game were to be a movie, it would probably be part of the Scream series rather than Batman Returns.

It plays like a real-time squad-based action game. Think of something like Streets of Rage brought bang up to date and you won't be far away.

Eidos tried this formula a couple of years ago with mixed results. Fighting Force was fun for a while but soon grew repetitive.

Freedom Force introduces an interesting element that gives the under-pressure button basher some respite. Hitting the space bar pauses the game and allows you to issue fresh orders to your band of super heroes.

This works because your characters actually follow orders - a radical departure in the world of video games where NPCs (non player characters) are usually so dumb they can't defend themselves from even the simplest attacks.

Even better, Freedom Force allows you to indulge your childish fantasties still further by creating your own comic book champ from scratch. With each successful mission your character gains new and up-graded powers.

Players lucky enough to have a decent broadband internet connection can also take their crusade to clean up the streets of Patriot City on-line.

Freedom Force could so easily have fallen flat. After all, the history of video games is litter with the discarded carts of failed official comic strip adaptions. By taking liberties with the subject - but not taking the mickey - Crave has produced one of the most enjoyable free roaming beat 'em ups since the halcyon days of the Sega Mega-Drive. KAPOW!!