'Con'- clusion (did you see what I did there?)
So on the face of it, The Con has plenty going for it. In addition to the faking you can do in fights there’s a whole rest and training calendar to heal and improve your fighter between bouts and, when you start collecting crew members later, you can branch out into other fighting styles using these new members.But The Con isn’t without its flaws, the biggest one being the lack of movement you have within the actual fights. At times it feels as if your fighter is glued to the floor as you can only dodge and sway side to side... you can’t retreat to gather your wits or prepare a devastating combo to pull off a surprise win. Once you’ve spent some time with The Con you may well start to find it a bit repetitive as the controls are more simplistic than they needed to be.
Sure, timing a counter-attack just right is satisfying, but only for the first few times you do it, after that it starts to become a bit mundane. The range of moves, whilst large, isn’t exactly massive and though there’s the option to play as a crew member with a different fighting style, this added variety only goes so far.
The problem, really, is with the fighting part of the game itself. The whole idea of conning your opponent and the crowd to earn cash is a great one, but this is let down by the very average fighting section, which is the main part of the game. That’s not to say that fighting in The Con isn’t enjoyable, it’s just I don’t see much longevity in it beyond trying to climb the rankings. Essentially, the fighting becomes a means to an end, rather than being the focal point of the game.
So in summing up I’d have to say that The Con is most definitely a ‘dipping’ game, one where you’ll play for a bit and then go and do something else before coming back to it. Even the stats improvement in training can’t rescue the action from being a repetitive affair with too little new stuff being fed in too slowly. However, as one of those games that you might play for an hour or two then come back to later.
Pros
Unique ‘throw a fight’ gameplay
Complex betting system adds an edge to fighting
Simple controls for pulling of combo moves
Easy to get into with hidden depth
Cons
Fights get repetitive after a while
Storyline more window dressing than anything to bother with
Lack of control gives toe-to-toe fighting
A fairly standard fighting game with a nice sideline in betting
HEXUS Awards
The Con - PSP
