Bloody Roar a cut below other fighting games

Fighting games can be as complex and difficult to master as anything available for home play.

Then, there's "Bloody Roar: Primal Fury."

This latest in Activision's series of mutant-based battlers comes to us from developer Hudson Soft and Eighting for Nintendo's GameCube. It's an exciting, graphically dazzling game for those who don't want to memorize 50 combination attacks for each combatant and then deal with the arthritis that develops when you try to make them happen.

While other games feature creatures, Bloody Roar is unique in that each fighter starts out human, but can be transformed into monstrously powerful creatures at the push of a button, as long as your Beast Change bar is full.

Until you've seen Ganesha transform into an elephant, you haven't lived.

The reason most serious fighting gamers scoff derisively at Bloody Roar is exactly what makes it so charming to those with less than a photographic memory and double-jointed fingers.

There are basically two attack buttons, one for punches, one for kicks. Use the excellent sidestepping control to keep out of your opponent's clutches, then punch and kick him -- or her -- into paste.

That's not to say that each of the 12 playable characters doesn't have a collection of special moves. You simply don't have to use them constantly to win.

Everything about this latest Bloody Roar is improved over previous versions. It's better looking, faster and offers several new venues and Boss characters to keep you busy.

The problem comes in comparing the game with such classics as "Dead or Alive 3," "Tekken" or "Virtua Fighter." The depth and complexity that makes the others so popular simply isn't available in this game. So don't compare it; just enjoy it for what it is, a button-masher's fighting paradise.

Graphics get an A. This is a nicely detailed game with excellent character modeling and movement. The venues are simple -- no footprints in snow or multistory combat -- but well-drawn and shaded. Impacts are dazzling, with flares of color and bolts of lightning often obscuring the battle. And for a game called Bloody Roar, there is zero blood.

Control gets a B. This is a game that almost anyone who's ever held a controller can play moments after the power goes on. Minus the scores of combinations required for other fighting titles, your character can kick those zoanthropes around the ring with ease with just a mashed button or two.

Sound gets a C-. Metallic synthesizer tunes are so-so and there are no neat animal noises when you're transformed into whatever creature your character becomes.

Sound effects are solid, with impacts staggering enough to knock you down by themselves.

Give "Bloody Roar: Primal Fury" a C+. I enjoyed it, and I think it's probably the best introduction available for gamers who've never tried a combat title. But it ultimately gets beaten to a pulp by the better fighting games, and that is its downfall.

"Bloody Roar: Primal Fury" is rated T, for ages 13 and up.