B-Boy

Word-up, says Gary, who isn't very pleased with this...

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It's like that and that's the way it is....Huuuuhh!

Ah Run DMC. Baggy joggers, fishing hats, tight white vests and Adidas Promodel II pumps without the laces. Yeah Boi - the cool and credible side of breakdancing. Your dad on his back, feet up in the air while your uncle spins him round - the more accessible, but altogether embarrassingly bad rendition of the Hip-hop jig. B-Boy unfortunately plonks itself in the latter.

You play the part of a young up start with an erection for break-beats. Kicking off in a grotty downtrodden basement it's your mission to be the most respected breakdancer on the circuit, and kick it on stage. Not the most fascinating narrative, but then where else can you go with this sort of thing? In a game that aims to be realistic and loyal to the sub-culture there can be no other goal than to achieve respect among your peers, it's just unfortunate that this sort of thing has been done to death in games before.

So you practice, go through the tutorial and duly learn the basic moves of your custom breakdancer. All the buttons, or a combination there of, represent a different move. Around your dancer there is a timing bar. You need to match the press of the button with the timer going around your character. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the be all and end all of B-Boy. However, there is complexity to found in the simple notion of pressing a button in time. There are power moves, holds and links - striking a balance between all moves is the key to success. The 'timing circle' speeds up and slows down depending on what kind of move you're performing, a 'hold' move, for example, is about balancing your dancer using the shoulder buttons - similar to the hand plants and grinds seen in the Tony Hawk games.

While B-Boy could have been the very essence of cool - the subject matter certainly lends itself well to the title - it's all a bit Oxfam: cheap and second hand. It takes heavily from other titles and fails to inspire even those who've done the 99% perspiration. A game is supposed to entertain and embrace the sense of sight as much as any other. Unfortunately you have to give the timing bars and the button markers so much of your attention that should you dare to glance at anything else on the screen you lose the momentum - the throw-down lost. Ah the throw downs... basically the main gameplay consists of you trying to match and ultimately better your opponent by utilising the moves in your repertoire - you gain a new one by winning a throw-down. However the more throw-downs you inflict on yourself the quicker you'll realise that every one ends up being the same, albeit longer as you progress. Not only that, B-Boy is turn-based, so after you've strutted your stuff, you have to wait and watch the computer do its thing... it gets dull beyond reason.

The computer sitting in your gaff drives the events. You receive emails with challenges and invitations to events and dance offs - while perhaps a brick with a note attached through the window, or a dancing telegram would be more apt an invitation the email system all seems a bit twee. And it's this sort of inconsistency that makes B-Boy so irritating. I'm not even into the scene, the sight of seeing a grown man giving the 'cool-down' when another grown man spins on his head doesn't stir my cockles, but if I was, I'd be mightily peeved. Where Tony Hawk games get it so right for skaters, B-Boy lets break-dancers down.

There is, however, a pretty decent (Bafta nominated) soundtrack featuring underground gone hip-pop The Black Eyed Peas, and the more credible Kool and the Gang, and Cyprus Hill to mention a few. This is probably what kept me playing rather than the gameplay, that just one more song factor is all over this title, only, unfortunately for B-Boy, this isn't an album review. The soundtrack, despite how good it is, fails to save B-Boy, and is nothing more than a glossing over of something that is little more than a passing distraction.

Other than the music there is little good to be said about this game. It offers nothing in the way of fun, in fact it's boring and a tad irritating. The camera is surprisingly awkward for such basic gameplay and this is symbolic of the rest of the title. There's very little here other than a prolonged grade B title that would be better served as some free flash game on some viral website somewhere.

Word to your mother.

30%

By Gary Flavell