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Video game reviews

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai

System: PlayStation 2

Company: Atari

Price: $49.99

Rating: Teen

Grade: B

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is the first major DBZ game to be released in English. It is also what DBZ fans have been waiting for.

This game features five fighting modes, including story mode and World Tournament. Story mode takes you through all the major battles from the Saiyan Saga to the Cell Games. You can fight with 23 of the DBZ characters, and you get all their major skills, including Goku's Kamehameha and Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon.

The graphics in DBZ: Budokai are good, but not as good as you might think from a second generation console game.

I didn't like the speed of the fighting in Budokai. It is somewhat slow, especially compared with what DBZ fans are accustomed to seeing in the television series.

- SCOTT STEINLE, Times correspondent

System: Xbox

Company: Microsoft

Price: $29.99

Rating: Teen

Grade: A

Some people may be turned away from buying Kung Fu Chaos because of its childish appearance. Although the graphics may look immature, the content is suitably grown up for teenage and adult players. There is blood, cursing and vulgar material. So that means this isn't a game you should buy for a 6-year-old.

All this doesn't distract from the game play. Kung Fu Chaos is like a simple beat-'em-up fighting game, reminiscent of Power Stone for Sega Dreamcast.

The premise of the game is that you're a kung fu action star in a cheap martial arts movie. You must shoot scenes in a variety of random places, while trying not to get hurt, and use lots of fancy moves to make the scene look better. At the end of each level you are rated from one to five stars on the level of professionalism in the scene. You want to get as many stars as possible to open new modes of play, levels and characters.

One of the things that makes Kung Fu Chaos such a great game is the levels. You may be standing on a raft floating down a river with a dinosaur chasing you, or on a flying saucer, or even on the sinking Titanic. Also, the action is broken up sometimes by minigames such as a bumper-carlike game where you must push other characters off a slippery iceberg.

Kung Fu Chaos is a great party game or a fun game just to play by yourself. I would recommend it to anyone mature enough for its content.

- ANDERS SCHERBERGER, Times correspondent