Prepare fists for fighting fun

This week, the BBC's Neil McGreevey has his thumbs full with two fighting titles, Jade Empire and Predator: Concrete Jungle.

Jade Empire (Xbox)

Jade Empire packs a mystical punch

In this enthralling simulation you control the career of TV's Big Brother stunner Jade Goody.

From negotiating magazine shoots to navigating your way to the latest premier, this is too "goody" to be true! And it is.

Of course this game is not about Jade Goody.

Rather, Jade Empire takes the venerable Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic engine and fills it with enough Chinese mysticism and martial arts to have Mr Miyagi grinning.

Set in a mystical Eastern land, players begin as a student at a chop-socky school whose village comes under threat.

Jade Empire's roots quickly show, with The Force replaced with the Path of The Closed Fist (dark side) and the Path of The Open Palm (Jedi).

Choose your path wisely, as all actions have their consequences. Despite being a role-playing game, what makes Jade Empire slap you in the face is the real-time combat.

Rather than taking turns at walloping your opponents, battles are as fast and tactical as an arcade beat 'em up.

Button mashers need not apply, though, as each balletic blood-fest requires much knowledge about the fighting styles.

Aside from combat, the plot is filled with more romance, intrigue and demons than any armchair adventurer could want.

Jade Empire is also stunningly beautiful - tall grasses sway as you run through them while the animation is predictably spot-on, given that your character was motion-captured from Lucy Liu's Kill Bill stunt double.

The voice acting (including a stint by John Cleese) and rich soundtrack add lashings of atmosphere. Jade Empire takes the best bits of Old Republic and greatly builds upon them - without a Wookie in sight - for a game of life, love and smashing people's faces. Miyagi would approve.

Predator: Concrete Jungle (PS2)

Predator: Riddled with problems

"Do-eet! Get da peepul to da choppah! Keel me, cheecken-sheet!"

It was the sheer poetry of Arnie's dialogue that helped make the infinitely quotable Predator the perfect action flick, as a multi-ethnic gaggle of tobacco chewin' beefcakes take on the Universe's ultimate slaughterer in a steamy rainforest - or should that be painforest?

No, rainforest.

Alas, this video game effort owes more to the stinking sequel than Schwarzenegger's thumping jungle boogie, as players hunt down an organised crime empire in an urban killing zone.

Gutting bold humans as the Predator in a third-person action-fest should have been a giddy joy.

Alas, Predator is riddled with problems. I have seen better camera work in trashy movies, while sloppy controls compound sluggish, mindless gameplay that involves finding a thug, stabbing him and running to the next guy ad nauseum.

Sure, there is an impressive array of Predator weaponry on offer, but why bother when a simple slash does the trick?

And where is the challenge in playing the far superior Predator - sometimes taking on foes armed with little more than a baseball bat?

It is rather like pitting Robocop against a 97-year-old wheelchair-bound nun. "You have 10 seconds to comply, Sister Mary".

Granted, you are able to lay down some gross executions, such as skinning your enemies or relieving them of their spines.

But rather than juicing up the gameplay, these seem present merely to lend the game its tantalising 18 certificate.

Visually, this is one ugly - well, you know how it goes - and features voice acting that makes Jesse Ventura's performance in the film sound positively Oscar worthy.

After the cinematic abomination that was Alien Versus Predator, I naively thought this franchise could sink no lower.