The Con Review (no fat)

Game Description

The Con puts the power of pure brawling in your hands, featuring over 4 different martial arts styles and a first person view of all the action, players can feel the fight right in the palm of their hands. A one of a kind fighting title with a nice soundtrack, duke it out over various levels to gain respect by placing bets and winning fights. Or if you are feeling particularly lucky, bet against yourself and throw the fight. Either way it will take money and experience to get to the top, where only the best fighters stand true.

The Con- Unique

The first person view of The Con has been compared by many to Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, but in reality is a beast of a martial arts fighter with some fun elements thrown in on the side, for a scrumptious, well rounded meal. The character creation which allows for face mapping is a nice touch, and is very deep. Fighters look like actual fighters-something that a lot of other titles seem to forget when they put theirs in circulation (Dhalsim to this day is a mockery of the Street Fighter Series) The many visual improvements to your character are hampered by lack of variety. Moves and combos are customizable but to a limited extent, which pretty much makes setting a style up for a made up character completely pointless. Some extra things can be done to differentiate your character from the computer generated characters, but the lasting touch doesn’t feel like a character you put your heart into.

The Con Gameplay

There are a couple of modes in the game, with the single player mode being split into story, and a ‘quick fight’ mode. Since the most appealing bearing is the story mode and multiplayer gaming, it would be cool to say that the quick fight mode serves its purpose as a timed affair, and a quick one at that

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While playing the Con, you are in charge of a 3 member fighting team. You can fight with all three against random fighters. The game really doesn’t have any ‘main’ fighters, and it almost seems like all these bouts are from randomly generated 3-d figures…who incidentally are devoid of anything that can be termed a ‘personality’.

In story mode you get to climb the fighting ranks through various settings and stages, to level up, train, and beat the random boss. The story itself is nothing mind-boggling or too innovative, but the idea behind the game shows promise.

The Con Betting

The best feature of the game should have been the gambling element. Also being able to throw a fight and bet on your opponent is a fun element…something that seems tailor made for this genre in particular.

Throwing a fight is particularly tricky if you don’t do it right, your acting has to be passable by the crowd, if they don’t buy it you are likely to lose more than just the fight.

The betting feature is missing in the multiplayer version, where it isn’t actually needed. And if you have one of those ‘can I borrow this?’ friends then gamers will be pleased to know that the Con is set up for game sharing. One cartridge will allow for some limited multiplayer, but the basic functionality will insure that your game stays in your collection for the time being.

Even as gamers everywhere love the gameplay mechanics on betting, the idea falls short when you realize that its much simpler and faster to just fight instead of conning for the same results.

The Con Controls

Majority of fighting fans will be put off by the slow acting controls of the Con, as well as the sometimes jerky camera angle. The layout is actually the most perfect setup for any PSP game to date. Analog/Directional buttons for ducking and weaving, face buttons for high and low hits, shoulder button for blocking and another for the trusty old Ric Flair.

The most perfect setup in handheld gaming becomes tainted with lack of controlled camera movement, but on the light side of things, it makes sense with the first person aspect to not have full control of your feet. This leaves more brainpower to the actual fight and landing of blows, but it still would have been a nice option to add for more advanced gamers.

The Con Graphics

Average, even with the first view mode the polygons are there, and so are the colors. It’s a blessing simply because of missing over the top special effects, that there is no slowdown in the game. For a system that is notorious for its frame rate slowdowns it is nice to finally see a game where players don’t feel cheated out of their experience when fighting the CPU.

The Con Sound

Nothing to write home about, the sound effects are average and don’t really capture the smash-mouth style of the Con. The music is decent, but a more hardcore or even street track would have helped move fights along.

The Con Summing up

The Con is a mixed bag of goodies, but with enough black jellybeans in it to turn the average gamer away. This game is an acquired taste that despite its flaws seems to have found its way into a few gamer’s library, as well as eBay stores.

The Con is a unique fighter with some multiplayer elements that give it playing value, the various and true to life fighting techniques is not for players who want over the top fireballs or fatalities. The slowness that a lot of players are up in arms about in the game is actually fitting for it and more true to life, as many have been spoiled by the hyper mode in Capcom games…more responsive controls wouldn’t have done the game any harm though.

The game is a fighter first, with everything else secondary. As a fighter, it sells and as a multiplayer title it even has some selling value. But as an overall need to have game, it can be passed on for better titles.

The Con Cost

The Con currently retails for $39.00US at the time of writing.