The King of Fighters 2006

It's time for yet another King of Fighters tournament where the metrosexual boys and buxom girls of the SNK 'verse get together for some more knuckle-dusting fun. But is this title yet another case of way too little, way too late?

Nothing New in 06

It's always a dicey proposition to include a year in the title of a game. When a game is called "Something Something 2006," the tendency, on the part of the gamer, is to have expectations that the game will have something that warrants the call out to the year. For example, the 2006 designation would leave sports fans with the expectation that the rosters will reflect the current season and that it will be, in some noticeable way, an upgrade from the 2005 edition that preceded it.

So when King of Fighters 2006 landed in our hands, we were understandably expecting something with a contemporary feel, a game that would show some sign of progression and improvement, not just from the earlier title in the series (Maximum Impact, which was the original Japanese title for this series) but for the entire franchise and genre in general.

What we got instead was a dose of retro 3-D fighting circa 1998, when titles like Bloody Roar were all the rage. Had King of Fighters 2006 been released back in the crazy nineties, it might've had a chance to stand out in the crowded fighting genre. But we're all a little older and wiser now in 2006 and we've come to expect a bit more than a tired, rehashed 3-D fighter with tired, rehashed characters.

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