Oni

From Bungie, the makers of the excellent 'Marathon' sci-fi shooter series comes Oni. A unique fighting game that mixes futuristic anime with bouts of gunplay. The story won't win any awards, but it's serviceable in it's straight forward nature. While the graphic's are good - they don't come close to some of the other entries we've seen in the gaming universe this past year.

No this game works because it does one thing really well - fighting. It's fluent, exciting and modeled well. It does an exceptional job crossing anime and modern game fighting mechanics. There's a nice range of possible kicks and punches and they look strikingly realistic while the flow and style of the game keeps things running at a exciting pace with a cut scene placed here and there throughout the action to keep things moving forward.

Personally it's nice to be able to control a butt kicking female game character that doesn't rely on her bust size to draw rave reviews and sales too. Don't get me wrong Lara Croft is fine, but Konoko is the real deal. Not that the weapons in Oni shouldn't get a mention. A nice mix of the old and the new. Not overbearing on the brute fighting drive of the game.

Sometimes nothing is better than just sitting back as a Striker or a Tanker enemy runs towards you and dropping him with a frozen mercury bolt a split second before he's within melee reach. Oh the happiness.