Rag Doll Kung Fu now playing

A nice one surely. A welcome addition. A great experiment. A funny-as-hell little no-nonsense game. That is Rag Doll Kung Fu which was created by Lionhead's Mark Healey in his spare time. Available to Valve's Steam distribution service, for the ridiculous price of $14.95 (excluding taxes), it should be a game which we should all have in our collection. Not only because it is fun playing - it is.

More so, because the industry desperately needs experiments like this to run well. You see, about 15 years ago up until 5 years ago I was a video game journo. I had dedicated more or less my whole life to games, starting with the arcade halls in the 70'ies, going through the home computer revolution in the 80'ies only to end up being unimpressed about what the future is holding as the 90'ies progressed. Games became stale in the 90'ies. Innovation was a word which did not sell and every other publisher ended up shelving out the next tried-and-tested take on all the popular genres. Creativity was gone. Games started to cost too much to take risks and - we - the consumers were and still are digging into our pockets sustaining that void.

An experiment like Rag Doll Kung Fu needs to run well. It needs to sell. It would give publishers the eye-opening insight that totally new approaches can make money at a reduced investment and at a reduced retail price. It would allow a lot of canned games to be relooked at. It would inject new life into the games industry.

So for the sake of the industry we all so love, invest in this game. Even if you are not planning to play it for extended periods of time. Give publishers the signal that experiments are appreciated. We will all be better off eventually.

I'll make it easy: Click here