Just another re-hash!
User Rating: 6.5 | The King of Fighters NeoWave XBOX
I honestly don't know what else to say about this game. Of course it's running on the new AtomisWave engine, but that's only a more detailed version of the old KoF engine used since '94. Don't get me wrong, here. It's a great engine, and I think it's about time they upgrade the graphics a little, but considering how hyped everyone was about the look of the game, it could've been better. Let's compare Capcom's CPSII and CPSIII engines. The CPSIII is just an upgrade to the previous, but with enough of a graphical enhancement to make it seem like a completely overhauled graphics engine, not to mention how insanely deep the fighting has gone, especially with the parry mechanic that was introduced. My question is this, why couldn't SNK enhance the AtomisWave engine with more details to the graphics, especially on the X-Box, and a few more changes to the gameplay? It would've made a world of a difference. The character selection is good, but nothing compared to KoF 2002, but a lot of characters that haven't been in a game for a while make it, like the kid version of Geese, that's fun, but the little things like that don't make up for where this game lacks in graphics and especially in gameplay. The control itself is unsurprisingly unresponsive, but it's X-Box. The soundtrack is pretty much what you'd expect from a KoF game, not bad, but not memorable, and it seems that all of the sound effects are recycled, probably because they are. I'm afraid that this game won't even please long time players of the franchise, as I am, and it didn't. Even the most hardcore fans will be asking for just a little bit more. 
