Divekick is an ironic game in many senses. It originally started as a parody of fussy fighting games and cheap shots, but totally by accident, it turned out to be a really good game that you really need to try.
And now it’s coming to the PS3.
Divekick is essentially the fighting game version of minimalist jazz. There’s no control stick, just two buttons: Dive, and Kick. Dive puts you up in the air and Kick both fires off an attack and moves you out of the range of opponent attacks when on the ground. One hit is one kill, best of five.
Sound stupid? That was the entire idea: The game was built to send up, as you may have guessed, the dive kick move. In fact, one of the heads of Shoryuken.com was behind the initial game. And the original game was packed full of gags poking at everything from racial stereotypes in gaming to DLC to lazy costume design. Here’s the game itself:
That smart-ass sense of parody is sticking around, as the press release has this gem:
“Divekick is good at two things: teaching some of the basics of fighting games to players of any skill, and ending friendships. I partnered with Iron Galaxy because I know they love these things as much as I do. They also gave me large burlap sacks filled with cash, which certainly didn’t hurt,” said [developer Adam] Heart. “This game was made by the community, for the community, to completely tear apart the community.”
But underneath the snark, it turns out to be a tense game of timing and precision. You have only one attack and one dodge, so it really becomes about landing your divekick perfectly. The irony becomes richer when you realize Divekick‘s depth is a complete accident, just like the game that started the fighting game craze, Street Fighter II, where combos came about as a quirk of animation timing.
It’ll be coming this spring.