Ever since I bought it I've felt like my Kinect was an utter waste of money.

This isn't helping.

Well I now know to mark the Kinect off the Christmas list and place it on the naughty list. Its just a way for company's to get the fans to shell out more money. My daughter loves Naruto and we got her the games. Some are good and some I belive were made just to pump more money out of my pocket. What a waste of money on something that could be so much more!

Zing! Good luck pursuing your career as a entertainment news spokesperson.

That or Ed Glaser.

Wow, I didn't even know this game existed. Great job ignorance, you've saved me again!
OMG, DBZ Abridged is hilarious! It's what got me into DBZ in the first place. It's also the reason I love Vegeta so much; DBZA Vegeta is like the Vegeta from DBZ, only his jokes are uncensored and his hair is even more spiky!
But I love you too, Nappa! You too Joe. XD
Good luck on recovering from this piece of blue Mr. Popo, and see you when you potentially review Halo 4!

I've never seen the show, but I wanted to see how shitty it was.

DBZ is a classic. NEVER judge an anime by its video game(s).

Or its live-action adaptations, while we're on the subject.

that was a great review.

my childhood thanks you for saving the world from this game.

great ending to the review to.

it's sad to think that this game is real and there is someone that buy it.

That was an epic ending!

Loved the review, can't say the same for the game however.

When I first saw the advertisements I was convinced this was some fan video for a fake video game because of how cheap it looked. So you can imagine my surprise when I found out it was real.

Meh, only watching the start of the video and the initial sketch reminded me of how utterly horrible and creatively bankrupt DBZ was... (NOTE: This doesn't apply to Dragon Ball)

This is precisely the kind of game it deserved. I can't believe I've wasted such a large portion of my life watching all episodes of it. It is the main reason I hate my pre-teen self to its core. That show was criminal and the worst crime is that a lot of people still think it was good for some reason.

(I DARE any of its fans to go through EVERY SINGLE EPISODE again. All the dozens of episodes dedicated to "Namek will blow up in 5 minutes!" with the exact same battle happening over and over without ever ending... The only reason DBZ has so godamn many episodes is because NOTHING HAPPENS throughout them, ever. In the time a show like Digimon finishes an Arc DBZ still has one of its characters powering up for his next attack or finishing a training session... ugh)

*raises hand* I've watched the entire series through twice. I still love it.

I'm not arguing with you, I'm just pointing out that there are people out there that CAN sit through every single episode twice. I'm completely aware of how inane the series is, and the fact that it's essentially the same pattern over and over again for hundreds of episodes. And I will never regret loving it.

Just... try and have a little respect for the fans. Just because we like something you don't doesn't mean we're any less intelligent than you.

I mostly agree with you, but you're kinda being too harsh; the original had to strech out the material, because it was being written, and the only alternative would've been fillers, but that's kinda hard to do in the middle of a battle or arc, and now there's Dragon Ball (Z) Kai that fixed that by cutting out all the padding and fillers.

Hmm... yeah, I agree I was being too harsh. I watched it very late, was tired, and the initial sketch brought a groan out of me and left a bad taste.

I still maintain this show is not good, padding or not. AND I do that comparing it to the infinitely superior Dragon Ball and even the much maligned DBGT. I tried to rewatch DBZ in my adult age and saw myself skipping a lot of episodes (and, not surprising, not missing much in the process). Dragon Ball was a show about adventure, comedy, wonderment and, in a odd way, the building of friendships, with fighting as a definite central point as well, but clashing with all the above. Oh, and things happened in the episodes.

DBZ is mostly about fighting and powering up to ever greater power levels with the barest of all justifications, non-stop, with some of the laziest plot devices ever conceived. Even at the very start the characters are too powerful and the fighting too important for the searching of the Dragon Balls be even worth of mentioning, whenever they need them: BAM, they have them. In Namek they almost had that adventuring back, but only because it was mostly comprised of the weakest fighters of the show at the time (Krillin and Gohan) so they couldn't fight their way out of any situation.

BTW, the Sayan legacy and the Genki Dama are the greatest cheat-code ever used by a writer to justify stupid power levels growth and the most boring Deus Ex Machina, respectively. The first means that whenever a sayan fights he just magically becomes more powerful without training, EVEN IF HE LOSES OR DIES, and the second means that ANY fight can be won as long as the main character is given, hear this out, enough time to power up! Like the show didn't have enough of that... (And in fact they use it to win every supposedly unwinnable fight).

It just became more aggravated because I tried to watch Dragon Ball again, and it was still quite watchable, and even DBGT was actually MORE watchable, even if still quite bad and becoming unwatchable again about the midway point.

Though I admit it unwatchable TO ME. I still can't ignore how lazy Torayama was with the writing of DBZ as a whole. Even Naruto when descended into pretty much non-stop fighting still had at least creative fighting. One Piece is probably the true successor of the original Dragon Ball, a show about adventuring, comedy, wonderment and friendship, plus a fair bit of drama (I couldn't care less the tenth time earth was in danger of being destroyed... it is not like they couldn't just remake it again with the dragon balls every time anyway), with fighting managing to keep it creative. But that's just me I guess.

This game sounds almost as bad as all those episodes of the series where everyone else is just waiting for Goku to show up and beat the bad guy for them.

This game isn't cel-shaded at all. It's modeled. The lines are "painted" onto the models, and the shadow and lighting is done the old-school way.

By the way, you said the "graphics" look great. I think they look awful. Incidentally, I think it always looks awful when you try to make a video game look like a cartoon without actually using cel-shading.

*Update* I see some cel-shading in the game now, but not much. Mostly the main outlines of the body. The game uses a bad execution of the combination of cel-shading and texturing-- an ALREADY bad combination.

It was pretty obvious that this game was DOA (Doomed on Arrival). Never the less, loved the review, and I should be checking out DBZ Abridged.

did the commercial announcer say super sigh-yen? That's a bad sign.

Yup. It's the same mistake as Shyamalan made with The Last Airbender. They try to pronounce things thike they're originally supposed to be, rather than the way they're pronounced in the show (or, in DBZ's case, every english dub of the show).

The Kinect sure isn't doing itself any favours. I don't think you've done a review of any Kinect game where your rating was above sub-par. I have a feeling that your worst list for this year is going to have a lot of Kinect games in it, and this one looks like it will be near the top. At least it's not another Mindjack though.

I own a Kinect. I didn't buy it myself. It was a Christmas present from my uncle. The only games I have for it are the Kinect Adventures and the Kinect Sports, both versions. I'm sure there will be a Season 3 out this winter. Seems like these are the only Kinect games that are worth anything.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think you did do some very positive reviews for some Kinect games. Still, I think the Kinect games that you gave low or average ratings to outweigh the ones you gave good ratings to.

The game has successfully butt-raped Crazy Joe's childhood. Mwahahahahahahahahahahaha .

Hey Joe, would you like to have 9000 copies of DBZ Kinect games as your Christmas presents? (Evil laugh).

You can watch the Bardock Special on YouTube for free, so there isn't even that to make you want to buy this PoS.

And Team Four star has just abridged it. Which is a vast improvement because this bardock specail is ass.

Baddass Kamehameha. And I always love hearing the DBZ guys. :)

Heh, nice voice cameo by Lani there.

And I was honestly thrown to hear Frieza NOT voiced by LK there... I am too used to the DBZA voice cast.

I'm always happy when I hear Lanipator's Vegeta voice. =D

Instead of blaming Kinect it's Namco who really should be under fire for being cheap lazy bastards. Even the Harry Potter game had more stuf than this.

The Kinect is fun for specific games,but nothing outside that area. My kids love the Sports games (and really,they're damn fun) and my wife loves Dance Central and Fitness. Outside of occasionally shouting FUS ROH DAH! we don't use it that much.

Well, to be fair, Bamco just outright hates every country but Japan, anyway. They're not lazy, just malevolent. But, hey, they're a neccessary evil, because they make some awesome games, like the Soul Calibur and Tales series.

Well, as someone who collected all the mangas back in the day I have one question:
If the game becomes repetitive during the first ten minutes and then stays so till the last bad guy falls, isn't it a pretty accurate reconstruction of the source material?

I'm partly kidding. DBZ is entertaining, but you have to admit, after Raditz the show became a loop f meeting the most powerfull being in the world, everbody getting their asses kicked and than Goku shows up and beats the bd guy to a pulp.

Actually, Goku got his ass handed to him by Cell, and various versions of Majin Buu. Gohan defeated Cell, and Kid Buu ultimately got defeated by a super spirit bomb, and several wishes to the Dragon Ball, essentially cheating.

Actually, if the game followed the animated series, then shouldn't it have been at least 20 hours of nothing but squatting and grunting to get your power levels up?

Man, now I want that cardboard hair. Forty bucks you said it was?

This review became over 9000 (Old meme is old, I know) more awesome with Lanipator's cameo as DBZA's Vegeta. XD

I effin love "Dragon Ball Z: Abridged", even though I never watched the original DBZ, which I think is a good sign of how good Team Four Star are in writing, editing, and voice acting, they're really a great bunch of talented people.

as for the review itself, good job for tearing that game a new asshole, Joe, that Kamehameha was epic, it was...beautiful. *Shed a tear*

I kinda figured this was going to be the case. Still good to see it blown to bits!

you'll probably be able to find the remaining QR codes (if there are more) on the internet eventualy, then all you have to do is print 'em and scan 'em

you know that it is bad when the fuqing anonser cant even prononce saiyan

Heh, good review, never going to play this game.
I'd love to see a dubbed version of the Bardock movie with the original actor from Bardock: The Father of Goku though.
Although any strong voiced male would do I guess, the Japanese version has him sounding like a 3yr old with a sore throat.

Btw, YouTube? Dragon Ball Kai is Z abridged, if the YouTube version is shorter than that it must just be clip-notes.

You need to see DBZ kai Abridged. one Epic epdisode.

5 stars for Abridged Vegeta.

Who else started head baggin, when Angry Joe did the kamehameha wave to his metal theme music... because I just did!

Not only that, but the game has the same animation mechanic as DragonBall Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi and that game fucking sucks balls just like DBZ Kinect.