FaceBreaker
Slapdash.
After the initial bewilderment, you start to cotton onto the fact that every fighter has an Achilles heel, and that's where the rock-paper gameplay comes in. Some are impossible to fight toe-to-toe, and the game wants you to fail - and even warns from the first loading screen that you should expect to fail often. The reason for this is fairly straightforward: you need to be able to predict what attacks are incoming and react accordingly. So, for example, if your opponent charges up attacks and comes dashing at you, an appropriate counter just as they launch their punch leaves them exposed. Once you get into a rhythm, it's surprisingly easy.
But the process of trial-and-error is so ludicrously frustrating that the 'reward' of another murderously annoying bout feels more like punishment than anything. The process of learning through failure is compounded by only being given three chances to beat any given fighter before you're basically relegated, and forced to battle the previous fighter again. Quite why anyone thought that was a good idea is just one of long list of quirks and foibles you'll discuss with your increasingly grumbly inner monologue.
But, now and again, you feel like you're making progress. Out of the blue you might find yourself stringing together an awesome array of unbroken attacks. While this is going on, a power meter rises and, when full, you're able to unleash an incredible Breaker attack, which launches your opponent high off the canvas and ends the match in slow-motion, slack-jawed glory. It's a fitting climax to the chaos and nonsense. Sadly, when it happens to you, the same can't be said. You could have been completely on top of the match, winning by two knockdowns to nil, and then get caught in a loop and end up on the end of a Breaker. Game Over, better luck next time.
Some characters are worse than others when it comes to slightly suspect - some would say cheap - attacks. With so many unbalanced elements at the core of the experience, it takes almost no time before people (and the AI, come to that) fall back on repetitive attack loops to win. Any serious fighter will find these exploits in a matter of minutes, and it's at that point you might as well stick two fingers to FaceBreaker and its cheap, ill-conceived mechanics and potty dodge system. It starts off bewildering, gets slightly better, and then fails dismally.
In multiplayer things do improve an awful lot. For a start, no human on Earth has the psychic ability of the AI to react as quickly as it does in FaceBreaker, but there's still the overall suspicion that, in the wrong hands, the mechanics are easily abused. When certain characters allow you to stun your opponent for several seconds, you know all too well that such pointless attacks will be used over and over again. And they are. In addition to all those kinds of shenanigans, it's simply too frantic for its own good, and no more enjoyable for feeling like you're playing on fast-forward.
Whatever your thoughts are on the finer points of the game, it all boils down to one thing, really, and that's the fact that you're essentially mashing the same two or three buttons repeatedly, and largely winging it most of the time. It's rhythm-action, if you like, but the very worst kind. As a boxing game it's useless, and taken as a fighting game it's almost as bad. Rarely before has a game looked so technically polished and been this bad to play. If this is representative of what EA Freestyle is all about, then there are some interesting reviews ahead.