GENRE
	Sports
	DEVELOPER
	Konami
	PUBLISHER
	Konami
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1-4
	CONTROLLER PAK
	yes
	RUMBLE PAK
	yes
	RAM PAK
	no
	BUY NOW AT

Imagine my surprise. I went to Best Buy last night to see if Fighter's Destiny had arrived. The Best Buy in my area on the average takes two weeks longer than any other retail outlet in the country to get a released game, so I wasn't hopeful. But, lo and behold, there was Fighter's Destiny sitting right next to a game I didn't even think was released yet, Nagano Winter Olympics. Immediately I was torn. While I'm a huge winter sports enthusiast, and am anxiously awaiting the release of titles like 1080 Degrees Snowboarding, I came to the store looking for Fighter's Destiny. I was with my girlfriend at the time, and she kept asking me, "Don't you already have a fighting game?" She was referring to Mace, which I do own, and enjoy, regardless of negative reviews. She's a huge figure skating fan (insert groan here) and I could tell she was hoping to convince me to get Winter Olympics. It turns out that figure skating isn't an event anyway, but in the end I bought both games. I'll be getting rid of Nagano Winter Olympics.

I don't know if my standards for N64 games are set too high. I do know that many titles are delayed, and when they're released the N64 gaming public descends on the games like a pack of starved, rabid wolves. When a game is finally released, we've heard the hype, we've seen the screenshots, and I start to formulate an idea of how the gameplay might evolve. I get excited thinking about the next generation titles, and sometimes when the games are released, my excitement is justified. While I have yet to go near Clayfighter 33 1/3, I had yet in my N64 gaming experiences to experience disgust firsthand. Thanks to Konami, I have been disgusted. This is the worst game that I have ever played, and I caution you to think twice before you even RENT it. This is a total piece of crap.

visuals

This game looks good. Looks are deceiving. The frame rates are commendable. I won't talk much about pop-up because that isn't much of a factor to me - I have to look for it to notice it, and if it's there it's not like I turn off the game and rant about it. In the speed skating event you could see the roof of the arena on the ice reflected and that was impressive. The characters were animated fairly well, and I have no complaints with any of this. God, if only this game played as good as it looked. It would be a winner for sure.

audio

The sounds are good in this title. The onlooking crowd cheers in a lot of the events, and the sounds of your skis (or snowboard) on snow is great. You can hear the wind as you fly down the hill - all very, very, good. Even the sounds in the bobsledding and luge events are great - all draw you into the experience before you realize that the experience sucks.

gameplay

Get ready for a rant. This is the worst example of gameplay that I have ever encountered. Let me give various examples. In the snowboarding half pipe event, you repeat combinations of button pressing and direction-holding on the stick or control pad before a specified amount of time to execute a trick. The whole experience is similar to Parappa the Rapper, and it sucks just as much. If I wanted to play Simon I would go to Toys R Us and buy that little piece of crap game- I wouldn't buy a 60 dollar game to remind me of the experience. The other events aren't as bad as snowboarding half pipe, but are still horrible. There are twelve events in all. I thought that I would have liked at least one. The downhill is repetitive and requires you to memorize the hill if you want to place. It's also very hard to see the flags to ski between, and disqualifications are frequent until the gamer has a mental map of the entire mountain to use. Ski Jump is plain ridiculous, and only becomes fun if you like to watch your guy wipe out when he bites it on the landing. While this is pretty funny, it gets old quickly. The bobsled and luge events are very similar, but equally unsatisfying gameplay. There really isn't a hint in the manual as to improve on your time, and it seems hit and miss as to whether you dump the entire contents of your bobsled on the ice. I could go on all day about the events, but I would just feel like I wasted more time then I should of on this horrible game. Lastly, I disagree on how Konami figures 12 events are resident on this cartridge. They must be counting two different lengths (?) in the ski jump as well as two different distances in speed skating as four events total. I noticed that they didn't make any mention of the events on the box - there was obviously reason not to.

It is worth mentioning that I loved "Track and Field" games of the past. I would have rather played "Summer Games" on my old Commodore 64 then have played this game.

multiplayer

See gameplay above.

overall

If you've read this far you already know that there is no point considering this game as a rental or purchase. While it looks good graphically, it's tragically flawed gameplay is proof that you can mip-map and speed up frame rates all day, make it beautiful to look at and authentic sounding, and all the game ends up being is a beautifully rendered lump of crap that can fly through the air at a high rate of speed. You'll hear it as it hits the wall with a resounding "splat" in true CD quality sound. You'll want to chuck this game through the air at a high rate of speed, and I recommend that you do so. It's obvious that the effort was there - where were the play testers? They would have stopped production of this game it it's tracks. I rarely buy games without pretty high recommendations, but my curiosity got the better of me. Please don't make the same mistake that I did.

3.5/10