PowerUp Heroes is an incredibly fun game that also provides a solid physical workout.
The story and cut-scenes are standard and childish (as is their marketing intent), while children will enjoy the feeling of omnipotence and conquest while embodying the protagonist, older gamers will still appreciate the plain fun of responsive motion controls in this dynamic fighting game. Each suit has three unique powers which can be chained, and you may bring two suits into each battle; with the ability to change between them. Chaining powers between suits gives an even larger damage bonus than chaining powers within the same suit's repertoire, although it is more challenging to pull off.
Power-Up Heroes is a fighting game in the same genre as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, but is vastly different in terms of atmosphere and complexity. The game is simple in terms of the moves you can perform, but not too simple as to inspire boredom or repetition. The game is largely about firing off special powers at your enemy from afar, and the powers are extremely creative. An early suit, Scorch, has the ability to propel a lava-filled rupture of rock at the enemy, smash the ground and throw the resulting debris at the enemy, or conjure a fire-shield. A Bionic suit can fire a rocket at the enemy from overhead, launch probes to knock back an enemy attempting to close into melee, or fire a stream of bullets from dual-chainguns.
The best quality of the game, which earned it the 9 score, is the fun and responsiveness of the motion controls. Powers may require you to hold your arms to the side as if you are cradling a ball of energy, that action being mirrored on screen. Then thrusting your arms forward, your avatar releases the 'hadouken' style ball at your enemy with satisfying results. Each suit has one attack that can trigger a chain, the attack usually stunning or knocking down an enemy for long enough for you to pull off the chain.
To fire the aforementioned dual chainguns at an enemy, hold both your arms up, then point them forward, holding them in position as you wail away. To launch the flaming meteor at an enemy as Scorch, jump up, resulting in your character jumping up and smashing the ground with his fist, propelling up a chunk of debris. You must then quickly propel your right fist forward to launch the rock at the enemy. The motion detection works immediately, and enjoyably smoothly, most instances of failure will be a result of human error in interpreting the moves on-screen.
Whilst embodying your bold hero, you may also launch weak but quick, and potentially interrupting, bolts at your enemy by punching forward at any time. Of course, your opponent may also do the same. Certain special moves can be dodged by twisting your torso left or right. There is no free-form movement or jumping forward as in other fighting games, which makes the game more simple. However, you may initiate close-combat by dashing towards the enemy by lifting your knee. You will then have the opportunity to punch and kick with any limb, and the enemy will have the opportunity to block by following prompts.
There is a slight delay after your movements and their appearance onscreen, and there is only one kind of punch or kick you can perform, but the detection is accurate down to which limb you choose to strike with. No punch or kick will be missed. After the melee is done, after five or so hits, one of the brawlers must end it by uppercutting or kneeing the other, resulting in the victim begin pushed away and suffering the majority of he damage. Following this, the combat continues at normal range.
Managing these elements of combat is reasonably challenging, and some battles can be quite intense. What makes the game amazing is the smooth integration of Kinect motion controls into the fighting gameplay, the variety and creativity of moves, and the fact that the moves you must enact closely mirror the spectacular effects on-screen, making for very satisfying and fun battles. Playing this game is a fair work-out, parents and active people will be happy to know that you will sweat while playing it for long periods of time.
Graphically, the game's graphics are simple, but bright, creative and well-designed. As you successfully pull of moves, you see waves or balls of fire, lightning, death, electricity, or whatever element your suit uses, bombarding the enemy, and the enemy thudding to the ground with satisfying impact. Each character is thematically different visually, and the game has suits that cover elements, technology, magic and psychic powers to name a few.
The sound in the game is average and not particularly noticeable, but the special effects are solid enough to make combat feel impactful.
Even though the special moves may seem violent in this review, this game is very suitable for kids. The atmosphere and combat is abstract and full of bright lights and magic powers, and enemies resemble robots or puppets in their suits, more than actual humans. Anybody, even adults or core gamers who are interested in motion control, will have a blast with this game, pun intended. There are some occasions where movements are not recognized on-screen, but they are fairly rare if effort is made to imitate moves properly as per the on-screen prompts. PowerUp Heroes is the first good fighting game for the Kinect, and although the gameplay and concept are not unique in any way, and are undeniably simple, the sublime integration of motion controls more than makes up for it.