Virtua Fighter 5 [PS3]

It seems odd, perhaps even Bizarro World kooky, to be speaking of a video game as if it were a classified document that could, if revealed, threaten national security or topple governments. Yet Sega is fiercely protecting the secrets for the PlayStation 3 version of the already-released 3D arcade brawler Virtua Fighter 5 as if they were not only potentially threatening to all mankind holds dear, but also radioactive, carcinogenic and, quite possibly, the impetus required to cause the dead to rise from their graves seeking human flesh in a zombie holocaust.

Sega showed off its stylish arcade fighter Virtua Fighter 5 at a mid-August press event held in its San Francisco offices. Attendees were given the chance to play the game against one another on a dual-screened sit-down arcade machine. It was, as expected, revelatory-except, of course, where it applies to information about the PlayStation 3 version of the game.

For those who missed out on the game's first four iterations, as well as its spin-offs (Virtua Fighter Kids, Virtua Quest, etc.), Virtua Fighter was born from the mind of Sega's famed game designer Yu Suzuki. It was the first 3D fighting game and is largely considered one of the video game industry's seminal titles. Over the years, the series has produced a number of arcade-to-console translations, with Virtua Fighter 5 being the first in the series to make it to the newest generation of game consoles.

As it stands now, the pool of information on Fighter 5 for the PlayStation 3 is limited. There are 17 fighters in the arcade game, including such mainstays as femme fatale Sarah Bryant, the gi-clad Akira Yuki, wrestler Wolf Hawkfield, and the ever-inebriated and geriatric Shun Di. Each has received a substantial graphical upgrade and, initially, possesses four different fighting outfits.

Two new characters have been added to the mix here. The first, El Blaze, is a masked wrestler using the leaping and jumping-heavy lucha libre style popularized by such spandex warriors as Mil Mascaras, Rey Mysterio, and El Santo. During fights, he can perform standing and running dropkicks as well as sunsets flips -- a move where a wrestler hurls his foe to the ground and rolls him up in a pin. Eileen, a young Chinese woman, serves as the competition's other new entrant. Sega describes her fighting style as "monkey kung-fu" and, in video combat, this translates to a lot of quick, erratic strikes combined with rolling and tumbling. As befitting characters in the long-running Fighter series, both Eileen and Blaze have their own, as-yet-indecipherable backstories. It is commonly known, however, Blaze's tale is somehow connected to that of the game's other wrestler, Hawkfield.