Deadly Tournament
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2001 CasaDosJogos
I tend to stay away from homebrew freeware games as most of them really aren't worth it. They tend to have really large file sizes, bugs, control like ass, and don't really pay off in the end. Hence Deadly Tournament, a Mortal Kombat style fighter, that while it's a good attempt it isn't anywhere close to the same league as MK is.
To be fair to these guys you can tell a lot of planning, imagination, and tender loving care went into the game. Each character is made from digitized graphics from a camcorder recording of each person. Backgrounds are a mix of photographs and 3D rendered images, and for the most part they come off all right. There's a nice long (but somewhat grainy) FMV intro. Music is actually pretty good and runs the gambit from fast paced techno electronica to heavy metal. Each character even has his own ending. The attention to detail is far beyond what you normally get with a freeware game.
A game however is more than the sum of it's parts. The characters are pretty grainy, and the moves they do look exactly like what they are - people in front of a camera doing karate moves. The illusion just isn't very convincing, it's pretty obvious that none of the actors actually know martial arts just by the way they stand. They're also a bit generic, you would think if you were going to be in a fighting game you would like, dress up in a costume or something. These people look like they're just hanging around in the mall, waiting for their girlfriend to call on their way to McDonalds. Tennis shoes, sweaters, blue jeans, T-Shirts, etc. I mean come on man, put on some spikes or wear a mask, do something to make it interesting.
All characters have an unrealistically high jump, like half the screen, which makes them look like they're on wires or something. There's only two basic moves, a simple punch and kick, although each character has at least one special (probably more but I haven't found a moves list anywhere.) Computer A. I. is pretty simple also, pretty much all you gotta do it jump kick it to death and you can beat nearly every character. All of this isn't so bad however, but the main problem is collision detection - you can hit the other guy when you're not even close, projectiles that you've clearly jumped over will still nail you, etc. Gotta clean that up a little fellas.
There are a lot of things done right here - a large amount of characters (for a freeware game that is,) well done backgrounds, good music, even secrets and fatalities. But the final package is somewhat lackluster. True it's way better than any of the pathetic games I've made. A decent first attempt guys, now make a better one.
Graphics: Characters are pretty grainy, but decently animated. Backgrounds are a decent mix of photographs and 3D rendered scenes.
Sound: Generic yelps, punch/kick effects, and explosions. Music is pretty good however.
Gameplay: Very unrealistic controls and wacky collision detection. A. I. just isn't smart enough to make the experience memorable.
Deadly Tournament can be downloaded free from here.