Game:

Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style (1999)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 10:46

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Summary:
Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style - released as Wu-Tang: Taste the Pain in PAL regions - is a four-player, 3D fighting game for the PlayStation. The basis for the game's story and setting is the real-life rap group Wu-Tang Clan, featuring characters based on their stage personas and the martial arts themes of their music. Some members of the group also provided voiceover work for the game and made vocal and production contributions to the game's music.

Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style uses a unique game engine created by Paradox Development, originally made for their unreleased PlayStation title, Thrill Kill. That game was noteworthy for allowing up to four players to fight simultaneously, a feature heavily utilized in Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style.

Due to the game's graphic depictions of blood and violence, a special code printed on the instruction manual had to be entered within the game to see the full, uncensored action.

Story:
The story is mostly told through FMV sequences and tells the tale of a group of martial artists studying under Master Xin, the last practitioner of the ancient kung-fu discipline of Wu-Tang. The first FMV sequence shows a small army of warriors practicing martial arts in a Chinese open-air kwoon under the watchful eye of Mong Zhu. He declares his plans to discover the secrets of Wu-Tang from Master Xin, who he has discovered to be hiding out on Staten Island in New York, which will presumably give him the power to take over the world. Soon after this, Master Xin is captured by Mong Zhu's goons and the Wu-Tang Clan vow to track Zhu down and rescue their master.

The clan fight their way through Mong Zhu's various minions in an effort to rescue their master, leading them through Staten Island, mainland New York and finally China. Unfortunately for them, during a torture session (using an old, rusty cutting machine) Mong Zhu discovers the secrets of Wu-Tang are tattooed on Xin's chest. Wasting no time, Mong Zhu viciously cuts the skin with the tattoo from Xin's chest, killing Xin in the process and giving Zhu access to the secrets of the Wu-Tang.

When the clan arrive, they take down Mong Zhu and the last of his henchmen. Mong Zhu activates a gas bomb in a last-ditch attempt to take the clan with him. Realizing that his talisman is the same as the bomb Mong Zhu just used, RZA activates his own gas bomb and shoves it in Mong Zhu's mouth. While the rest of the clan open the portcullis blocking their escape, RZA grabs a lamp from the ceiling of the dojo (which is actually made from the tattooed skin cut from Xin earlier). The clan then escape outside, whereupon an explosion destroys the entire building. The game ends with Master Xin's spirit watching down over the clan and smiling.

Reception:
Praise for the game came from Gamepro (4/5), Absolute PlayStation (90%), and IGN (8/10), while it received a much colder reception from GameSpot (5.2), Electronic Gaming Monthly (4.5), and Game Fan (63%). Complaints were focused on the game's poor frame rate, unresponsive controls, and steep difficulty curve of the story mode, while the game's supporters lauded the then-innovative four-player matches, in-depth story mode, and creative use of the Wu-Tang Clan license for the characters, music, and tone.

Gameplay:
The game runs off the Thrill Kill engine. It is a tournament-style fighting game with matches ranging between two and four fighters at once, with either every fighter for himself or in 2-on-2 or 1-on-3 team matches (in the single-player game modes the player will regularly be faced with multiple opponents and be outnumbered in matches). Stylized versions of all nine members of the real-life Wu-Tang Clan appear as characters in the game, with a number of fictional fighters also included in the character roster ranging from human martial artists to powerful deity-like beings with magical powers (which typically serve as the game's "bosses").

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