There comes a time when every man must face his fears. Some of you are probably afraid that Sony has collectively lost its mind by pricing the PlayStation 3 at $500 and $600 respectively. However, for those of you who face your fears and hand your hard-earned cash to Sony, you will be in for a treat. What is this treat you ask? It is my greatest fear, Virtua Fighter 5.

I play just about every fighting game that has a decent amount of quality behind it. I'm especially partial to Tekken, but it's certainly not the only fighter I play. It's commonly known among tournament level fighting game players that the Virtua Fighter series is by far the deepest fighting game series every created. Everyone has different preferences, with some players preferring 2D fighters and others preferring 3D fighters, but almost everyone agrees that Virtua Fighter takes more skill, time and effort to learn properly than any other fighting game. This is why I have shied away from the series and why it has become my greatest fear.

It's not just the sheer depth of gameplay that the Virtua Fighter series holds, it's also the fact that the competitive VF scene in the US is extremely lackluster. It's easy to find a Tekken or Street Fighter tournament just about any given month, but Virtua Fighter tournaments are few and far between with turnouts far less than other fighting game tournaments. If I had the ability to play good VF players on a consistent basis, I would probably have gotten into the series by now, but unfortunately, most of the people who play the game in the US are no where near tournament level players.

Japan is a different story, with seemingly everyone playing Virtua Fighter in some form. It's common to see Japanese business men waiting in line at the corner arcade to play Virtua Fighter. When the game went on location test late last year, the lines were huge and mostly full of men in suits. Japan's national VF5 tournament has already been announced for later this month, and Sega will be showing off the PlayStation 3 and arcade versions of the game next week for the US press. I'll be present to lay down the law and own all of the fighting game freshmen posing as gaming journalists, but I thought it was time to give you an update on how Virtua Fighter 5 has been progressing before my hands-on report.

Before I get into some of the more intricate gameplay changes, let's discuss the basics. Virtua Fighter 5 will be released on the PlayStation 3 early next year. Sega has not yet confirmed whether or not the game will have online play, but it's widely assumed that you won't see VF going online anytime soon. While this may disappoint some (myself included) it's probably a good choice for Sega. Game sales could see a boost, and with Tekken 6 yet to be confirmed for online play, the PS3 is currently lacking on online fighter, but VF5 would play like a completely different game online. If you're a casual player, you probably don't care. You probably get a kick out of playing Dead or Alive 4 and Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting online, but the simple fact is that a game based heavily on frame data like VF5 would play very differently online than it would offline.

If you haven't seen any videos from the game, you've been missing out. Check out the official E3 2006 trailer Sega released a few weeks ago. This is the best looking fighting game to date. Even the arcade version of the title, running on hardware that doesn't even compare to the Xbox 360, completely smokes anything we've seen from a fighting game, including Dead or Alive 4. The game is being upgraded and enhanced for the PlayStation 3, so the visuals are sure to be some of the best ever seen in a fighting game. Hopefully I'll be able to give you an update on that next week.

The one thing that is somewhat lacking when it comes to Virtua Fighter is the number of characters. While Tekken: Dark Resurrection boasts over 30 characters and Dead or Alive 4 features over 20 characters, Virtua Fighter 5 clocks in at a mere 17 characters, including two new characters, El Blaze and Eileen. To some the lack of characters will have a big impact on their overall enjoyment of the game, but there is something you have to understand about VF that's different from other fighters. The depth of each character and the variety of characters is simply unmatched. VF5 may include only 17 characters, put each character is very different and will take a considerable amount of time to learn.

Continue...