NeoGeo Battle Coliseum - PS2

It's a strange irony that a company whose fans insist 'SNK: 2D Forever!' would take its best-known and most profitable franchise, King of Fighters, and deconstruct it, rebuilding in its place a three-dimensional hybrid of a fighter that nobody wanted to play. Casual followers of the fighting game scene may dismiss this latest offering as another (barely) current-gen home console cash-in. They'd be doing themselves a great disservice...

Battle Coliseum is a proper 2D fighting game. It was born on Sammy's AtomisWave arcade platform, a capable Dreamcast-based digital core often found running pachinko machines and videogames across Japan, and has been ported and tweaked for PlayStation 2, then kindly converted to the PAL format for the seven or eight people likely to buy it.

But should this number be greater? Should you become owner number nine? It all depends. If you're reading these words, it means you've tracked down the game and are most likely only a few clicks away from having a happy package land on your doormat in a few days. The game sits in something of a state of limbo - it's too advanced for a 2D fighting game beginner, yet those cursed with the KOF disease will be uneasy with changes to characters from Samurai Shodown, World Heroes, Last Blade, Fatal Fury and even Metal Slug.

Further conflict lies in the naming of the game. King of Fighters '94 was the definitive coming together of SNK's fighting games, blending well-balanced characters from all its current titles, Samurai Spirits aside. You can't have a man with a sword slashing a small girl to bits can you? Well you can, but not for another decade. So why isn't this called King of Fighters Ultimate Extended Mix or something? It's because the casual gamer will sigh at yet another KOF game. This in turn annoys the hardcore.

NGBC delivers two-on-two tagteam gameplay with a character switch mechanic that will please the unnaturally rapid brains and fingers of the proponents of the Marvel Vs Capcom series, meaning this is a proper, deep and potentially obsession-driving 2D fighter. If you were burned by the dire SVC Chaos or Guilty Gear Isuka, this should put you back on track and give you faith in the genre that has refused to die, remaining a staple for many gamers. Every 2D fighting game is a dexterous chess game, played very quickly. You take risks, you calculate priorities and it makes your brain feel good.

The bottom line is, head into any arcade with stand-up cabinets. If you see a 2D fighter stocked in the veteran section, that's a good sign. If you see it being played, that's better. If you witness a small crowd gathered waiting to play, you can be pretty sure it's a game worthy of attention. NGBC is stocked, is played and gathers a decent crowd at the larger arcades and as such, is well worth a look. more