Thanks :)

Hopefully Crackdown doesn't ruin my chances of getting this on February 20th. Not sure I'm willing to drop $120 on that day :/

Regardless I'll have it soon.

edit: OMFG I just watched that..looks so freaking excellent. Can not wait.

El Blaze has really grown on me. I thought the new characters were naff when I first saw them, and I sort of still feel Eileen is a bit of an Aoi/Pai mishmash, design wise. (Though certainly not gameplay wise of course! This isn't Tekken!)

I didn't realise how small El Blaze is before, but going up against Wolf here really shows just how different he is. Fast and nimble, he could really capoeira his way into my heart.

Both of the new characters are indeed interesting looking, but I'm not sure if I'll get too heavy into either for quite some time. I really love the characters that they added in VF4, especially Vanessa and Goh. My two favorite characters to use, as of right now atleast, are Sarah and Vanessa.

Ha! Girls on your team is a distraction - A TEMPTATION! Except for Jacky, for obvious reasons.

Sarah, Vanessa, and Pai all own. I'll kick your ass with Jacky too, though! ;) No love for Goh? He's such a badass.

A W E S O M E ! ! !

I'm so not waiting around for this to hit the 360, I'm totally going to break down and pay through the fucking nose for a PS3 in march.

VF how you play with my heart!

I'm going to voice my opinion, and based on my gaming taste, one of you VF masters can decide whether this game is for me.

I loved Tekken up until number 5. The cheap ass Jinpachi boss used his otherworldly techniques to teleport, and turn the entire stage into lava. Not fun when its not an equal playing ground. Same for DOA4. Alpha killed me 60 times in one campaign. I counted.

I don't mind combos or practice, but when all that fails against cheap AI, whats there to hope for? Point of the story: I hate cheap bosses. And cheap AI. Will I enjoy VF5? I've only played the one on PS2 and arcade. Should I ignore this one, or should I buy it?

You'll get a different answer from Grift, but personally I think all fighting games are rubbish when you play solo. If you want incentive to complete them in the way of story, VF is useless aswell.

However, if you have friends you can duke it out with and just want the solo play to be a substitute for practice, then VF is the best. I base my answer on VF4, but 5 seems set up similarly. The AI is really, really good and actually useful for learning tactics, and the quest mode is built sort of like a carreer mode and is very open ended.

However, if you want a decisive answer from Simon; No human opponents - don't bother.

That's what I was thinking Simon. My friends hate fighting games, and since this one has no online, its probably a no bother.

This game has a different take on character AI than other fighting games, and it's the least cheap AI you'll find. You'll still have your standard arcade mode, which has a set AI across all characters, but the Quest Mode is where the real fun is in single player.

Quest mode (or Kumite or whatever) puts you up against AI characters that are modeled after real arcade players, and the results are pretty amazing. You'll encounter every character in the game multiple times, as played by multiple AI players. For example, not every Sarah or Wolf that you run into are actually the same--they'll have different styles and different skill levels--likewise, you'll have a handful of AI characters in the game that use multiple characters quite well, you might notice that the same "player" you were fighting before is now using Jacky instead of Vanessa, or whatever.

It's more like a virtual arcade model. As you win fights and your rank increases, fights get harder and harder but they never seem particularly cheap. Insentive for playing solo is that it's actually quite challenging to get to the rank of Champion and the AI will probably have a better handle on the game than most of your human buddies ever will.

In order to reach champion a working knowledge of the gameplay system and most of its characters will be reached, and that's the beautiful part. Not only is are the training options fantastic, but the challenge forces that much from you, and when you're done, you've accomplished something. You know Virtua Fighter.

That all said, Virtua Fighter 4/Evolution did the same thing..so if you didn't find Kumite/Quest mode interesting, this will probably fail you too. I think if you give it a proper chance though, you may be suprised. It's not worth missing out on this game because no one will challenge you in real life--I had the same issue with VF4 and it's still one of my favorite PS2 games.

That said, having a friend around who knows the game, or trying to teach the game to friends, has always been a personal goal of mine. Obviously kicking a human opponents ass is more satisfying, but this is as good as single player gets in this genre.

I'll check it out then. I probably won't buy it though. It'd help a lot if there were a demo. I might end up waiting for the 360 version. Achievements ftw!