Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was a movie that seemed to come out of nowhere and knocked your socks off. The movie had an inspiring story, great soundtrack, and awesome martial arts action! Three years later, Ubisoft creates a game based off the movie, and now it has arrived but was it really worth the wait? Read on to find out!

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon follows the movie’s storyline perfectly. Just like the movie, the fierce warrior Li Mu Bai, gives up his legendary sword, the Green Destiny, to his lover and fellow warrior Lu Shu Lien. With this act, he hopes that he can at last retire to a peaceful life. The game begins with Jen, a student of the Jade Fox (arch nemesis of Mu Bai), stealing the Green Dynasty and running away. Players take on the role of Li Mu Bai, Lu Shu Lien, and Jen and see how these three lives are intertwined into the destiny of this sword.

As players progress thoughout the game they will get to play in the shoes of three warriors: Jen, Li Mu Bai, and Lu Shu Lein. Jen was born into a world of wealth and privilege, but she began to despise it so she started training martial arts with Jade Fox. She has been learning the ways of the Wudan (a highly powerful martial arts) through a book that Jade Fox stole many years ago. Jen has the potential to be a great warrior, but she still needs to learn the code of the warriors. She is now being forced into marriage, but she is in love with another man, what will she do?

Li Mu Bai is a legendary warrior and owns the Green Dynasty. For many years he has been trying to kill Jade Fox, the woman who stole the secrets of the Wudan and killed his master. He is beginning to get weary of battle so he gives the Green Dynasty to Lu Shu Lien to deliver to a friend. His only goal in life at this moment is to reveal his love to Lu Shu Lien and find students to teach the ways of the Wudan.

Lu Shu Lien is a great swordswoman, who works as a merchant. Her fiancé, Li Mu Bai’s best friend, was killed many years ago by Jade Fox. She has now fallen deeply in love with Li Mu Bai, but she feels that if they were to embrace the love they have for each other it would dishonor her previous fiancé.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is an action/brawler game, in the same vein as the Bouncer. There will be many enemies that players will have to beat up and chop up as they progress through each of the levels. When players first start in the game, they will have a few basic moves at their disposal, and as they progress through the game their arsenal of moves will increase to help players take on the enemies that they come across.

The game uses a nice level up system. If a player prefers to use weapons more, they will become more efficient using them, and the same thing applies to hand to hand combat. It is best to use everything so your players will be more balanced out. In addition to obtaining normal moves, players can also get special moves, that will help turn the tides of battle.

The controls will be really weird to get used to in the beginning of the game. They seem really bad, and something that you would think developers wouldn’t use in a game like this, but after playing through the game for about ten to fifteen minutes, players will be pulling off combos like there was no yesterday.

Just like in the movie players will be able to pull off superhuman feats just bt the press of a few buttons. The animation for all of the characters, whether they are flying, jumping, or swinging sharp swords looks like the movie that they were captured from. The developers did a good job of translating all of the moves from the movie to the game.

Throughout the course of the game players will be able to use a variety of weapons that your enemies drop, and they range from axes, swords, and spears. Each weapon has a class, damage rating, and durability. Players have to remember that the enemies can also pick up their dropped weapons.

The graphics for the game look decent, but it is nothing that will blow your socks off. The character models are nice but the variety of enemies is sparse in this game. Later on in the game you will get the feeling that you have killed a particular enemy hundreds of times. As stated earlier the animation for the characters is really smooth and looks nice. The cut scenes added in throughout the game look nice as well. The level of detail in all of the environments that you will fight in is good but not stellar, some levels are teeming with detail while others have little to none.

The developers did the smart thing, and used the awesome soundtrack from the movie all throughout this game. This really makes players feel as they are in the movie as they hear the chilly awesome sounds from the cello and violin. The sound effects are also nicely done from the crashing of swords to pounding the enemies. Another interesting thing is that the game’s voice-overs are done in Chinese with English subtitles, which will please many “purists” out there.

One good thing that the developers did was put in several different endings and many hidden goodies. This will make players want to go through the game many times to get them all. It is little things like this that the developers do that make their games extra special.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is rated T for Teen for violence. It supports Dolby Digital, and Progressive Scan 480p.

Gameplay: 6.3
Once players overcome the difficult controller settings, the game becomes really easy to play. The only bad thing (and it is a big one) is that the game becomes really repetitive, and kills any hope for replay.

Graphics: 6.4
The animation is superb but everything else falls short of making this game beautiful. Why must I defeat the exact same people a million times in each level?

Sound: 8.9
With the soundtrack taken directly from the movie, what could go wrong?

Difficulty: Easy
The game is really easy, and can be beat in several hours.

Concept: 6.0
While the movie was a blast to watch, this game really doesn’t innovate the genre any.

Overall: 6.5
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is one of those games that could have been so much more with a few tweaks. A big problem for this game is that it was released too long after the movie was in theaters. I am sure that many people have forgotten that this movie even existed anymore, which also might hurt this game. While this game is not the best around, it is definitely worth the price of a rental to check it all out.