The Dragon Will see the Xbox

All this is from ign.com
yet I wish to share with you so here you go


March 26, 2002 - It was at the last E3 (in 2001), that IGN got word of a Bruce Lee game definitely coming to home consoles. But the excitement really got going in November upon the launch of Xbox because everybody's favorite martial artist was featured prominently in the Xbox game catalog included with first party titles. His image was on the cover itself along with several other launch period characters like Munch and the Master Chief from Halo. That's all any of us needed to get tingly and wide-eyed all over again about Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon.
The Features


30 lush, 3D, hyper-detailed environments set in real world locations like San Francisco and Hong Kong.
Engage multiple opponents "Bruce Lee-style" with an enemy lock-on targeting system.
More than 30 different enemies each with its own complex AI routines
Enemies work together to surprise, surround and ambush the player.
Punch, Kick, Block and Special Attack with more than 100 moves in Jeet Kune Do, motion-captured from Bruce Lee's last student.
Innovative Move Upgrade System where players purchase new moves from the tokens earned after enemies are defeated.
Hil's take
I grew up watching Bruce Lee movies. Game of Death, Chinese Connection, and of course Enter the Dragon all spurred my imagination. Every kid on my block wanted to be a kung fu master. So, the idea of a Bruce Lee game, to me, is very exciting. But the more I learn and the more I play, the more disappointed I become.

The version we have is about 85% complete, meaning there won't be too many big changes before the final version. And that doesn't bode well for this title. The best thing about Bruce Lee is when you let him idle. He does some pretty cool Lee-like animations. But, you know, when you say the best thing about a game is when you're not playing it, that's pretty bad.

My biggest disappointment right now isn't with the stilted fighting system. What deflated my interest was a total lack of any of the characters from the Bruce Lee films. I was looking forward to the challenge of beating Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or taking on Chuck Norris. Instead, there seems to be a bunch of nameless ninjas coming at you. By the way, ninjas are Japanese. Bruce Lee is Chinese. But I can roll with it. The first boss fight is against a woman with DOA-worthy bouncing boobies. She's no Chuck Norris.

As far as the combat system, there are over 150 moves for Bruce to pull off. Not bad. But the combat is really stilted. Instead of being fluid, you do one move, pause, move awkwardly, pause, do another move, pause, and on and on. Moves are pretty standard to pull off and should be no problem for fighting game veterans. But in this 3D world, some of the moves are hard to land. And that gets frustrating when you pull off a whirling kick and you fly off in the wrong direction. The game feels like Double Dragon 3D, and not in a good way.

The backgrounds look really nice, with a lot of detail and good textures. But the character models are pretty poor. Bruce Lee has a slightly deformed head, making most of the cut-scenes giggle fests. I mean, how can I take it seriously when the main character looks like her has some sort of genetic disorder? I really had high hopes for Bruce Lee, but what we've seen is a pretty huge letdown. Who knows, maybe a miracle will happen and the right amount of tweaking will save this game. But right now, it doesn't look good.

Aaron's Take

The late Bruce Lee has attained superhero status in the world of pop culture. In the world of videogames, unfortunately superheroes often end up used and abused, so the Dragon will have quite a fight on his hands as he makes his debut on Xbox.

It's best if I get my pet peeves out of the way early. There are kickass martial artists with afros in Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon, but there's no definitive Jim Kelly character. Now, Kelly wasn't known for his acting skills, but seeing a guy kick ass in platforms and bellbottoms can make up for that kind of shortcoming in an actor. Anyway, that's not him in the game, so you can either get over it, like most of you should, or squint and pretend it's him, like I plan to do.

The mix of 3D beat-em-up adventure fighting and conventional 3D fighting, ala Dead or Alive 3, sounds more interesting than it actually is. The environments are more or less tracks that you'll move through but it will be done in sections. You have to finish off all of the enemies in one area before you can move on to the next segment. There are no transitions screens or anything like that, you just move Bruce on down the road, or path, or hallway.

Ronin is banking on the depth of the combat system to keep gamers involved in this title. About 150 moves including strikes, throws, counters and nunchuk attacks will certainly help but all of that Bruce Lee goodness isn't apparent in the beginning. All I could do was a few generic punches and kicks with a few special moves thrown in using the analog stick. The whole combat system is shaky right now with major clipping problems, sluggish controls that aren't as responsive as they need to be for a fighting game and unsophisticated artificial intelligence routines.

Here's an example of what's going wrong at this point in the game's development

One of the coolest parts of Bruce Lee movies was how Bruce could whoop the ass of an entire group of generic bad guys, ten or twelve at a time. They'd gather around to overwhelm, but all that would do is put them within striking range where Lee would tear them up. In Quest of the Dragon they have a great feature where you can attack enemies other than the one you're locked onto by tapping the right analog stick. So, if you're engaged with one bad guy and shredding him with the attack buttons (X and Y), you can pop some slob sneaking up behind you by quickly leaning the right analog stick towards him. Bruce will throw a quick back hand or his patented lightning fast punch to keep the wolves at bay. The only problem is, you'll rarely get a chance to use this cool feature early on, because the enemies in QFTD are dumber than the bad guys in the movies and they won't move in for the attack. Nothing, especially strange AI, should ever get in the way of ass whooping.

The depth of the fighting techniques are being overshadowed by the technical issues at this point. While this isn't a first party title in the same way that Halo and Rallisport Challenge were, Quest for the Dragon is still being co-published by Microsoft and Universal Interactive. Ronin will need to tighten up the overall polish of the game in the next few months if they expect to Bruce to be an exception to the rule about crappy superhero games. Enjoy the fresh batch of movies.