Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon

The Dragon makes his XBox gaming debut. Imagine if the game was as good as he was!! When the words of the master of Jeet Kune Do are muttered people all around take notice. His name brings joy to many people foreign and domestic and his fighting style is unmatched to this day. Yes I am talking about none other than the legend Bruce Lee. Fans of the “Dragon” have been awaiting a chance to take control of the great one for years now, finally they have their chance. It is such a shame that it comes in a package that even the Grinch wouldn’t steal. A shameless use of an icon lands a bad taste in my mouth find out why.

I tried, I seriously tried for hours trying to like this game. I practiced all of the moves, mastered the art of fighting multiple opponents, and even suffered the ridiculous frame rate issues that came with it just to get a chance to play as The Dragon himself. Alas after countless hours of yelling at the screen for cheap deaths and choppy frame rate I graciously ejected by copy from the XBox and slowly put it into it’s plastic grave. I had wanted SO much to love this game, cherish this game, and even more so be able to play it with a smile and instead I come away with a frown, oh fortune how you mock me.

Where do I begin? Let me start by saying that this hurts me much more than it hurts you to read it so bear with me. Graphically the game sucks, I don’t have a better word for it, it plain sucks. The frame rate is disgusting, the character models are laughable, and the environments? Shit they remind me of a DOS PC title. Invisible walls galore and the camera, oh my god the camera never knows where it is going. The trees in this game must be made of pure molasses as the camera sticks to every single one of them!

My next issue is the fighting system, oh how I loathe thee. How you mock my gaming skills, you filthy bastard! I spent so much time trying to figure out which button I pushed because whenever I hit one, it took the game at least 2 seconds to execute the move. Talk about lag! The system is pretty basic, you have two attack buttons, one for blocking and another for action. You can purchase moves as you gain tokens by beating up baddies. Blah blah blah we have all heard that before, the thing that drags Bruce Lee down is the fact that the system is so sloppy it couldn’t fight it’s way out of a paper sack! The lock on feature takes over whenever it wants too and the free roam mode has you swinging at air 90% of the time.

Moving on I get to the sound, or lack there of as I like to put it. The character voices are so bad in this game that I had to turn them off, seriously. Bruce sounds like a cheap cinese immigrant begging for change and the enemies sound as intelligent as a ball of lint with such witty comments as “You’re Dead” and “Come On”. I tell ya the personality just rolls off of this one! Next the music…pfshhhhh ok nevermind I won’t bore you with the details let’s just say that you need to turn it off!

What can I say, I got excited and I was shot down by the masses. Sure I will keep the game for the simple fact that I can whoop ass as Bruce Lee. Will I enjoy it? Probably not as the control and graphics of this game make it almost unbearable to even watch. Can it be looked over? In a word no, because if it could I would have done it and enjoyed it. Another sad abuse of a license, my only hope is that the upcoming Jackie Chan game is not of this caliber, if it is I may give up on martial arts games altogether. Oh well back to my PS for some Jackie Chan Stuntmaster!

Written by
Ken is the Editor-in-Chief of this hole in the wall and he loves to troll for the fun of it. He also enjoys long walks through Arkham Asylum and the cool air of Shadow Moses Island. His turn-ons include Mortal Kombat, Metal Gear Solid and StarCraft.