Kung-Fu Live Message Board

Bend your mind with the antics of Vellu's trickster style!

There is no getting around it--This guy will kick your ass. Watch a living room become an all-out brawlfest with Kung-Fu LIVE!

Learn how to configure the basic settings and presets to get accurate controls in Kung-Fu LIVE.

Learn how to leverage the advanced controls to get a more precise gaming experience in Kung-Fu LIVE.

Karate chop.

Virtual Air Guitar Company is taking a page out of Captain Falcon's book for a Kung-Fu Live contest. In exchange for prizes, the developer is asking players, "Show us your moves."

it couldn't be easier to win the first bunch of prizes: the first 20 people to email YouTube links to their wackiest Kung-Fu Live moves will win prize packs "including a rare bandana and signed photographs of international video game celebrity 'Sensei Oskari' himself." Of the videos already posted, it's hard to beat the guy using a Kinect ... as a melee weapon.

After that, prizes will be given to the videos who receive the most votes each week, for an unspecified number of weeks. If you're playing Kung-Fu Live, you're already making a damn fool of yourself in front of a camera, so why not try to profit from it?

Show off your skills.

With a motto like "Serious fun for people who don't take themselves too seriously," it's no surprise Virtual Air Guitar Company's debut title is the brimming-with-dumb-fun Kung-Fu Live. Utilizing the PlayStation Eye camera to inject players into an arcadey, comic book-inspired 2D beat-'em-up, the title should appeal to anyone who's mimicked the Karate Kid's crane kick or threatened a potential bully with a deadpanned, "I know Kung Fu." Actually getting yourself in the game, however, can feel like a kick to the swimsuit area, and could steer some Bruce Lee-wannabes from a weekend's worth of hilarious chop-socky hijinks.

Making the ancient art of kung fu even more difficult.

Unleash your inner chi master.

#gameface PlayStation Eye martial arts game Kung-Fu Live hit the PlayStation Network today, forever cementing the grinning face of Sensei Oskari in our brains. See more of Oskari in action and learn how to win his bandana at the PlayStation Blog. More »

Epic kung-fu adventure is now available for download.

Hello everyone! Teemu Maki-Patola here from Virtual Air Guitar Company back with our very first update since Kung-Fu LIVE’s launch in both North America and Europe this week. For those of you who’ve already downloaded it, we thank you so much and we’re hoping you’re having a blast! If you think you’re having a little trouble surviving though, well then you’re in luck. Today we wanted to come back with a few things that could help you fight your way through to the finish on your epic journey into the world of kung-fu comic books.

Before we dive into a quick tutorial video, I first wanted to thank everyone again for all of their support over the last year, as it’s truly helped us get this game finished and off to your living rooms. That said, we know that our game can be extremely challenging, physically, and we wanted to let our very own in-house Sensei Oskari demonstrate how to do one of the key moves in the game. A lot of you have seen him in our videos and trailers, and he’s back to give you some quick tips on how to pull off the basic “Power Punch.”

As you can see, Oskari likes to get really into the game. Don’t feel intimidated by his moves though, since, to be fair, he’s had well over a year’s worth of practice both testing the game, and engineering all of the game’s sounds. That said, he’s definitely right about the power punch. Not only is it a brutal fierce blow to any enemy on screen, it also doubles as a fast and efficient way to move around any level. You can also, of course, simply run quickly to the left or right – and the game will exaggerate all of those moves on-screen giving you time to then re-center yourself in front of the camera. We find that a mix between both running left and right, jumping, and a clever use of power punches can be the most effective and fastest ways to traverse any level. (Pro tip: This move will be essential when fighting the giants, so make sure to master it before level 7!)

Other tips we have for you are of course to remember to stretch, drink plenty of water, break when you feel as if you need one (or about every 20 minutes or so) and of course – make sure that you have plenty of space and bright lights on in your playing area. About 7×9 feet of playing space should be just right, and you should also have enough light in your room for the PlayStation Eye to see you fighting the good fight in front of your TV.

What else can we offer you in an effort to help maximize your playing experience with Kung-Fu LIVE AND kick some serious ass at the same time? How about a kick-ass Kung-Fu LIVE bandana, just like the one Oskari is wearing! We’re giving away 100 of these hard-to-find collector’s items, you can be sporting one soon to look just as cool as him…

If you’d like a chance to score a seriously kick-ass Kung-Fu LIVE bandana, all you need to do is email us at giveaway@virtualairguitar.com with one of two things. If you have the game, email us a picture of yourself along your adventure using the image export feature. Any image will do, we’d love to see you in action! If you don’t have the game yet or can’t do that, simply tell us what your favorite fighting move is of all time. It can be from a game, a movie, or even from the real world of martial arts – just let us know what you think is the most badass move of all time. We’ll be randomly selecting 100 entrants to win a bandana mailed straight from us in Finland, so if you enter, check your email for the next steps if you’ve been selected!

Other than that, we simply wish you all have a good time with our game. Whether you’re playing alone or playing with friends, playing for high-score or playing to burn some serious calories – we ask that you always remember to keep the action enjoyably ridiculous and not take things too seriously – it’s been our motto since the beginning! Thanks again to the PlayStation team and please remember to also stay tuned to our Facebook page which we’ll be updated all throughout the holiday season, and be sure to check our website as well for even more pro tips from Sensei Oskari himself, guiding your mind and your fists to victory!

Tired of kicking various random things (the trashcan, pieces of furniture, garden gnomes) around your house? Waiting for the day when all that kicking can finally be put to use winning a game? You don't have to wait much longer -- Sony has announced that Kung-Fu Live will available in the US on December 7, so, in a bit less than two weeks from now, you'll be able to drop your real-life limbs on some virtual baddies.

There's also a new trailer, embedded after the break for your convenience. Sony recommends that you empty out about seven by nine feet of space to stand in front of the PlayStation Eye camera and do all your moving around, so it looks like you might be able to put those furniture-kickin' skills to use early after all. Hi-ya! Oh geez, sorry kitty, didn't see you there.

The release date is set for this highly-anticipated kung-fu adventure.

Hello there, fellow ninjas and warriors! This is Teemu Maki-Patola from Virtual Air Guitar Company finally returning with the big news many of you have been asking me since we first came to the PlayStation.Blog earlier this year: When is Kung-Fu LIVE coming out? Well, after months of demo events across the world from gamescom in Germany to PAX Prime in Seattle, combined with THOUSANDS of cumulative man-hours for our small independent team in Finland, burning the midnight oil and sweating like crazy play-testing our game, we’re FINALLY ready to break the news right back here where we started. What better way to do that than with an all-new trailer? Have a peek at the clip below to see what people have being saying all year, and get the leg up on exactly when you too can literally step into the world of Kung-Fu LIVE and lay the smack down in your living room!

That’s right! If you’re in the U.S., then you can download your way into the action on December 7th. We know it’s been a long time coming, and we’ve always wanted to get this game to you before the last of the leaves hit the ground in 2010. So, as soon as it’s officially too cold to practice your kung-fu moves outside, you’ll get an indoor option that will also transport you to a far off land of street thugs, ninja assassins, and four story-tall giants looking to bash your brains in.

So, with the launch of Kung-Fu LIVE now just a few weeks away, we wanted to brief you on a few simple things to keep in mind before you get ready to play. First off, remember, you’re going to need the PlayStation Eye camera in order to play Kung-Fu LIVE. You will also need a SIXAXIS or DUALSHOCK 3 Wireless Controller for some menu selection, and you can use up to four controllers to get your friends in on the five player multiplayer that pits one brave on-screen fighter against the rest of the players in the room.

The other thing you’ll need is a little bit of space. Remember, Kung-Fu LIVE is unlike any other game to come before it on a home gaming system. You’ll need about 7×9 ft or 2.5/3m of space to play comfortably if you’re more of an extreme fighter. Think of it like setting up a virtual ninja fighting amusement park ride in your house! Our FreeMotion technology will need to track your entire body in plain view, so you’ll also want to turn on those lights to get ready for action. That and, oh yes, you’ll want to stretch before playing to prevent aching muscles afterwards. This will truly be a workout unlike anything you’ve experienced, and will DEFINITELY be a great place to start shedding those holiday pounds. Our lean and mean QA testing team can certainly attest to that!

Thanks again to all of our friends here at the PlayStation.Blog for giving us the chance to bring you these updates, and thanks again to all of YOU who’ve been showing your support over the last few months. This project represents years of independent computer vision research and technology from our team here at Virtual Air Guitar Company, and your enthusiasm to see us finish our crazy idea for the ultimate full body motion fighting game was just what we needed to help get this game completed.

Look for Kung-Fu LIVE on PlayStation Network this December and please be sure to ‘Like’ us on our Facebook page. And before I forget, I wanted to mention our unique image export feature. You can take pictures of yourself inside the kung-fu comic book world can be export them as images straight to your PlayStation 3 photo folder, and then used anywhere you like! We’d love to see you in our game, so please feel free to post those to our Facebook page as well! Remember, our company’s motto has always been: “Serious fun for people who don’t take themselves too seriously.” When you finally get a chance to leap into the world of Kung-Fu LIVE this December, we hope you get a better idea of exactly what we mean. Have fun, play safe, and remember, “Sweep the leg!”

Kung-Fu Live made quite the impression when I saw it a few months ago, promising a full body-controlled gaming experience -- using Sony's PlayStation Eye instead of Microsoft's much-hyped Kinect.

As with Kinect, you'll need a lot of space in order to play comfortably. The developer tells us that you should "ideally have about 7x9 feet of space." The camera needs to be able to see your entire body, from head to toe. You'll also need some bright lighting, and you'll have to watch what you wear. For example, wearing a white shirt against a white wall will confuse the game. (Hence the jacket in the picture above.)

Hello out there! This is Teemu Maki-Patola from Virtual Air Guitar Company back to give you a quick update on all of our latest happenings over the last month. And what a month it’s been! For those of you that missed it, we gave not one, but TWO huge body-on sneak peeks for Kung-Fu LIVE at some of the biggest gaming events in the world. We went to gamescom and PAX Prime to let thousands of players on both sides of the pond step into the action of our game for the first time. We were able to meet up with our fellow ninjas Jeff ‘Air’ Rubenstein and Rey ‘The Fury’ Gutierrez at PAX to get them jumping, kicking, and firing lightning bolts at baddies like never before.

Both shows were a tremendous success for us. With thousands of fans getting a chance to see the game in person, we literally had to use a ‘ticket wheel’ system where players would take a number and wait for over an hour to be among the first to play the game for just three minutes! We apologize for the long wait, but we simply cannot thank everyone enough for sticking around to kick some ass and tell their friends about the game. Some were even excited enough to finish playing, then take another number and do it all over again!

It’s one thing to dress up as your favorite video game character, but it’s another thing to literally BE your favorite video game character inside of a video game. No, costumes aren’t required to play the game at all, but like we always say, they can DEFINITELY add some more fun to the experience. With avatar-free gameplay, you aren’t controlling characters that look like a ‘cute’ version of you – it literally IS YOU inside of the game!

With true 1:1 control of the moves of your in-game version and the ability for the camera to track your skeleton’s every movement, players can have fun ‘unlocking’ a limitless number of characters by letting their imaginations run wild. Some of our highlights, besides ‘Ghost’ from Call of Duty and ‘Jak’ from Jak and Daxter can be seen below, as well as on our Facebook photos page. PLENTY more to see there! Plus, don’t miss a full round-up of game play videos on our own website.

Ultimately, we just want to thank everyone again SO much for coming out to say Hi to us and for checking out our game. We’re still a small, independent studio here in Finland, and seeing so many of you get excited about our game is what’s helped us so much over the last few weeks as we rapidly approach the finish line. We’re still on track to be launching later this fall, and as soon as we have a launch date for PlayStation Network, we’ll be sure to let you all know as soon as we can.

Until that happens, please be sure to ‘Like’ us on our Facebook page, suggest us to your friends, and stay tuned right here to the PlayStation.Blog for more exclusive updates. With any luck, we’ll soon have more to share on our unique four-on-one multiplayer system very soon. Until then, thanks again for watching!

#pax Some people look amazingly cool when they try upcoming PlayStation 3 motion game Kung Fu Live. They step in front of the PlayStation Eye and do their kung fu moves with panache. But how do cosplayers look? More »

#pax When you play Kung Fu Live, a game not for the Xbox 360, your body is the controller. This is a game for PlayStation 3, not for Microsoft's controller-free Kinect. Yet the effect is impressive, similar and enjoyably ridiculous. More »

A Kinect-style hands-free experience for the PlayStation 3.

Kung-Fu Live, PSN's upcoming PlayStation Eye-powered martial arts beat 'em up, features a multiplayer mode, but it's probably not what you expected. You won't have multiple players flailing around in front of the camera. Instead, one player will be able to fight human-controlled opponents. While the hero will still have to use his physical prowess to progress through the game, his enemies will be able to use standard controls via the DualShock. Kung-Fu Live becomes a very literal battle between traditional and motion controls.

Tracking more than one player via the PlayStation Eye may be a technical limitation, but Virtual Air Guitar's Teemu Mäki-Patola does also admit that allowing more than one human player has ... unintended consequences. "It seems inevitably dangerous to let more than one people on the same camera," he said. "Especially kids forget about the other and easily end up bumping to each other." Kids don't need fancy video game consoles and camera tracking technology to fight the old fashioned way.

This is Teemu Maki-Patola from Virtual Air Guitar Company. Our team specializes in breaking new ground with motion-based gaming, and we’ve returned right here to the PlayStation.Blog after weeks of preparation ready to show off the latest trailer for Kung-Fu LIVE! Thankfully, this comes just before we head to not one, but two of the biggest fan-friendly gaming events on both sides of the Atlantic. The trailer gives PlayStation owners a taste of the epic multiplayer opportunities to pick up a controller and fight a player on-screen. It also adds insight into just how far you can take your costume ideas in Kung-Fu LIVE.

Working on the game this summer has been a non-stop fight to the finish. We’ve been balancing the physics on all of the interactive items in the new environments and everything is coming along smoothly. We’re spending a ton of time on the soon-to-be-revealed boss battles and on tuning the difficulty levels of different in-game enemies. As a big first step for motion-based gaming, the hard difficulty level will actually be challenging your fighting skills to the max.

As for multiplayer, it’s been one of the most fun things to test and tweak in the office. You can see the idea in the trailer with the ninja fighting the bald dude on the left and the blond guy on the right (yours truly). That’s just a taste of what you can do in this game. It can even be expanded to four players using DualShock 3 controllers against one fighter playing controller-free with nothing but his own moves in an all-out five person arena brawl! You can even see the ninja pick up a small kung-fu magazine, another guy with some soft-padded nun-chucks, and one fighter using his own boxing gloves in the game. Our patented Freemotion tracking system will work with any smaller handheld objects you’d like to use in helping to lay the smack down on screen. It’s definitely fun to experiment with whatever makes you feel ready to take on the world!

We’ve announced that players will have the chance to go body-on with the game at Gamescom (Hall 6 – Open Booth C-033.) What we didn’t get to tell you (even though so many of you were wondering in our last post) was that Kung-Fu LIVE will also be playable at PAX Prime 2010 in Seattle, WA, September 3rd – 5th in Booth #3654. In addition to that, for anyone still looking to get a hold of those elusive, SOLD OUT 3-Day passes for PAX, they can stay tuned to our Facebook page for details from us on how to win some! You’ll have to convince us (as well as other fans on the Virtual Air Guitar Company fan page) that you’re the most BADASS fighter there is, and you’ll need to submit a photo of yourself as proof! All of the rules and details will be there on the fan page on how to win.

As for the shows, we’ll be revealing many of the new enemies, new levels, boss battles, and giving the crowd a taste of multiplayer for the first time at both Gamescom and PAX. We can’t wait for you to hop into the game for yourselves, and attendees at both shows have the chance to walk away with some exclusive Kung-Fu LIVE gear! We don’t want to spoil the surprise, but we promise it will help you get in the mood to show off your fighting skills. Costumes will be completely optional, but are definitely encouraged to help intimidate your enemies.

Thanks again for checking out the trailer, and we can’t wait to see you at these shows in the coming weeks as we rapidly approach our launch on PlayStation Network this Fall!

#ps3 A lot has been made about the potential for the PlayStation Move's motion controls, but let's not forget that the PS3's humble little PlayStation Eye cameracan do motion control of its own, no plastic wands required. More »

Use your whole body to battle evil.

If you punch and kick the air while you watch this trailer for Kung-Fu Live (after the break) -- and if you happen to look exactly like the guy in the trailer -- it'll be just like playing it! The latest video of Virtual Air Guitar Company's PlayStation Eye-based brawler demonstrates the fighting abilities, otherworldly powers, and even storyline integration that you'll be able to experience by simply standing in front of your TV.

In a lengthy PlayStation Blog post accompanying the trailer, Virtual Air Guitar Company's Teemu revealed a weird multiplayer feature, in which up to four players can use PlayStation controllers to fight against the player using the camera, presumably with the unstated goal of making him or her pass out from exhaustion.

Kick off Comic-Con week with a look at how you’ll be kicking ass in the comics!

Hi there! Teemu Mäki-Patola back to give you the latest update on Kung-Fu LIVE since first showing it off right here on the PlayStation.blog back in May. With Comic-Con just days away in the US, this week is one of the most exciting times to be a lover of all things comics and video games. With that in mind, we finally wanted to show off a closer look at what it’s like to literally step into the pages of a classic pulp action-comic in our latest trailer below!

For those of you PlayStation Eye owners or future PlayStation Move owners, this trailer gives you a better look at exactly how our own Freemotion technology will work when tracking your entire body without any controllers. As you can see, we always find it’s best to let loose when playing the game, and dressing up in your favorite ‘bad-ass’ outfit is something we definitely recommend. As far as weapons go, the single-player experience is currently controller-free, and players can use their own inanimate objects to take down enemies with much more style!

We can’t wait to show off much more of the game later this Summer, and you can look forward to learning about the game’s five-player multiplayer, enormous arena stages, boss battles, and more! The game will be launching on PS3 this Fall on PlayStation Network not too long after the PlayStation Move hits stores. Stay tuned to our website, our Facebook page, and right here to the PlayStation.blog for more details as soon as we’re ready to kick more news in your direction. I’ll also be happy to answer any questions you have about the game in the comment section below! Thanks for reading, and we can’t wait to get you all into the game, literally!

Start stretching because this game stars you.