Review: Sum Fighter (Xbox Live Indie)
Sum Fighters is the first foray into the world of Xbox Live Indie Games by On The Fly Entertainment. Inspired by Tetris Attack, it is a mesh between Puzzle Fighter and Blocksum. If you’re unfamiliar with Blocksum, it’s a puzzle game where numbered blocks rise from the bottom of the screen. Your job is to combine the blocks to get rid of them before it reaches the top. To do this, you need to have two 2 blocks, three 3 blocks, four 4 blocks, etc. next to each other. 1 blocks are immune to this and need to be added together in order to make them disappear.
As you remove blocks, you send locked blocks over to your opponent’s screen and your power meter fills up. Once full, it allows you to use a special attack against your opponent’s screen and hopefully hamper their progress. The player whose screen fills up first is the loser.
There are four characters available (as well as two secret characters that I haven’t figured out how to unlock yet) based on high school cliches: the jock, the nerd, the graffiti artist/stoner, and the goth. Each has their own special move, some of which are better than others (I particularly like the ones that add numbers to the individual blocks, changing a 2 to a 3 and so on).
There are two modes: Story and 2-players Vs. (with a Survival mode in the works, tentatively scheduled for July 1). Each character has their own story. I initially ran through as Edison, whose whole goal was to woo his true love, Audrey (his teacher and one of the hidden characters).
The animations are smooth, though it’s difficult to really notice when you’re in the middle of “fighting.” I really enjoyed the overall feel to the art of the game, though. It was well done and looked to be something that could have had its own Saturday morning cartoon series.
Overall, I had a great time with the game. The action was fast paced, but never too fast that I felt like I couldn’t keep up. I only hope that, in time, there’s an option to play with someone over Xbox Live. While I enjoy Story mode, it’s awfully short and the AI is sometimes a little easy to beat. For 240 MS points ($3), it’s a solid game and will especially be worth it once Survival mode comes out.
