Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit Preview (Xbox 360)

The Dragon Ball Z (oh, what a difference that space between the ‘l’ and the ‘Z’ makes) anime gained huge popularity stateside after it found a home on Cartoon Network. Even though the series appealed more to the younger folk, the series has matured throughout the years and is now consumed by a wider audience with a shared interest – intense, hand-to-hand combat.

We wanted to spill the beans on Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit back when it was previewed at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference, but strict licensing embargos kept this from happening. The good news is that those restrictions have been lifted, and we can finally give you the scoop on the first Dragon Ball Z title since 05’s Sagas, not to mention DBZ’s inaugural foray onto next generation hardware.

The Japanese origin of the Dragon Ball manga empire has kept the video game adaptations flowing on systems from Nintendo and Sony. The same can’t be said for Microsoft’s systems. Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is only the second game that the ‘box’s have seen during their combined eight year tenure, when the Sony and Nintendo systems have seen dozens of DBZ SKU’s in that same timeframe. We’re not complaining though, especially after getting a thorough demo and a bit of hands-on of Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit at GDC.



Make no mistake about it: Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is a flat-out, ball(Z)-to-the-wall fighting game in the same ilk as the 360 favorite Dead of Alive. The main difference with Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is that it is based on an ultra-rich manga universe (something that few other fighters have at their disposal) that can be utilized for plot and character attribute/ability generation. Oh yeah, the CGI characters of Burst Limit are kids of cartoon proportions and are devoid of Jell-O bosoms as well (it’s Burst Limit people, not Bust Limit). But if you strip away Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit’s colorful character bios and the Z Chronicles’ (the clever story mode in Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit which uses full HD cut-scenes plucked straight from the anime) twisty plot, you’ll see that developer Dimps set out to make an extremely competent fighter regardless of the combatants’ lofty place in manga history.

The first thing we noticed before moving our character a single pixel is just how amazing Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit looks. We’ve already seen how spectacular cell-shaded games can look with titles such as Crackdown and Naruto, but it appears Dimps has used its prior DBZ experience to take the anime look to another level. You’ll even get constant, in-fight reminders of just how good Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit looks through the cut-scenes that appear to be CGI, but are actually taken right from real episodes.

Platform:
Xbox 360
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Publisher:
Atari, Inc.
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Developer:
TBA
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Genre:
Fighting
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Release Date:
To Be Announced
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Game Features:
Offline Players: 1-2
EDTV 480p Support
HDTV 720p Support
HDTV 1080i Support
Dolby 5.1 In-Game

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