70/100
Players3 ratings: 44/100
Critics4 reviews

Where to get it

Microsoft Store

2010 · Advanced Mobile Applications · Fighting

Fighters Uncaged

Xbox exclusive

Fighters Uncaged is a Kinect fighting game, using the player's body to trigger various martial arts attacks. Fight twelve different opponents in a brutal underground tournament.

Released: 10 November 2010
Platforms: Xbox 360
Genres: Fighting
Developers: Advanced Mobile Applications
Publishers: —
Country: Belgium
Age ratings: ESRB T PEGI 16

About

Fighters Uncaged is a fighting video game for the Xbox 360 Kinect system. It was developed by AMA Studios and published by Ubisoft in November 2010. Fighters Uncaged was one of the first twelve games released for the Kinect. The game has the player control Simon, a man who is attempting to win an illegal fighting tournament to help get his father out of trouble with a crime lord.

It has one game mode and features many different fighting moves and different settings and opponents. Simon is able to go up in leagues by obtaining certain numbers of points, which in turn unlock more scenarios and opponents. Following its release, Zuffa filed a lawsuit against Ubisoft for the usage of a trademarked term. Fighters Uncaged received poor reviews from critics, with many criticizing the tutorial and visuals, and citing its motion control system as the biggest issue they had with the game, which many considered to be broken.

Keywords

martial arts
hand-to-hand combat
achievements
motion control
games on demand
kinect required
real world fitness

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Fighters Uncaged is a single-player-only fighting game controlled using the Kinect, a motion sensing input device. The player controls the protagonist of the game, Simon, through his attempts to win an illegal fighting tournament to help get his father out of trouble with a crime lord. The game features one gamemode called "Fight" which is only accessible after completing the tutorial. Fighters Uncaged is played in an over-the-shoulder perspective, with the opponent being on the opposite side.

Simon is able to do a range of different actions, including short and long punches, kicks, blocks, dodges, and headbutts. The player can execute special moves via shouting in the direction of the Kinect, once the corresponding bar is full. Fighting consists of looking for telegraphs in the movements of one's opponents to figure out when to dodge or block attacks, then hitting them while they are vulnerable. In the early stages of Fighters Uncaged, it is made less difficult to read the telegraphs of the opponent, but as the player progresses, they become increasingly imperceptible.

Development

Fighters Uncaged was announced by Ubisoft at Gamescom 2010, three months before its official release. There, people were allowed to preview the game. The game was developed by AMA Studios and published by Ubisoft exclusively for the Xbox 360 Kinect. com were not intrigued.

Grant was unimpressed by the game's announcement, criticizing the concept and its character designs and noted a misspelling in the preview. The game was originally planned to feature a multiplayer mode, though this was cut later on in development.

Reception

The game received "unfavorable" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, where the game was ported and published by Microsoft Game Studios on May 26, 2011, Famitsu gave it a score of 24 out of 40, while Famitsu X360 gave it a score of three sevens and one six for a total of 27 out of 40.

The tutorial was criticized by reviewers for different reasons. Tom Hoggins of The Daily Telegraph described the tutorial as being "mind-numbing". David Jenkins of Metro wrote that the tutorial was the most notable part of the game, though ultimately nonessential. He wrote that because of its length it may have been an "attempt to protect [the player] from the awful reality of the real game".