[REVIEW] Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit (Xbox 360) A very cool anime fighting game...

I have never been a Dragon Ball Z fan, probably saw some episodes as I surfed the channels past the Cartoon Network, but was never really interested. I always saw it as an anime cartoon for children and that's about it. But playing a little bit of Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit piqued my interest.

It seems like the inspiration of Burst Limit is the classic Street Fighter franchise. The first thing you'll notice is this 3D fighting game has some outstanding visuals. The cel-shaded characters and animations look like they were transferred directly from the TV channel, to your video game console.

The game is very accessible to player who haven't watched a lick of Dragon Ball Z. The stories come from the television series and they're easy to follow and for the die-hard fans, you get to actually play through the battles from some of your favorite episodes. The Z-Chronicles is the long story mode where you begin with 3 characters, but by the time you finish, you will have unlocked more than 20 playable characters, as well as scenes from the TV episodes. It's a very "play for reward" type of game, motivating you to unlock as many goodies as you can.

The game play may seem complicated at first, but if you work your way through the tutorials you can pretty much get the hang of it and start to memorize some of the moves. It's not as complicated as, say, Mortal Kombat, but it isn't a button masher either. There's a collection of combos that are the same for each character, but the results on the screen are different for each character. It's fun to find out what each character will do with each combo.

The other modes in the game include a Versus mode, where you can play friends, a Training mode to practice your moves, trial mode that features some cool challenges, and then online mode where you can fight gamers across the world.

Even if you're not a fan of Dragon Ball Z, if you're looking for a fun, story-driven, and excellent looking fighting game, Burst Limit will sure not disappoint, even though it is based off a kids cartoon. For die-hard Dragon Ball Z fans, this is pretty much a must-have game.

Q's Rating: 4 out of 5

Gamespy: 4 out of 5 

IGN: 7.9 out of 10 

Check out the trailer here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oLWrIw7p5jY