Virtua Fighter 5 arrives, belatedly, to the Xbox 360, a few months after it’s successful Playstation 3 counterpart, which raises a couple of interesting questions. What has half a year of extra development time given the 360 version and has it been worth it?

The Virtua Fighter series has always been renowned for it’s depth of play and balance. Virtua Fighter 5 is no exception. Every playing style is catered for, from brutal, hulking strength (Jeffry) to quick and sophisticated (El Blaze), even the drunken masters are catered for (Shun). And each character is so beautifully balanced that it’s possible to get a classic match out of anyone.

Outside of the slight changes to the Quest mode – 75% more items have been included - there is really one giant change from the Playstation 3 version, Sega has now been able to include an online mode for fighting around the world (much like Russell Crowe!). Simply connect up through Xbox Live and get your ass handed to you by people from all over the globe.

The 360 suffers in one big respect when placed against its PS3 counterpart, and that’s through no fault of the game itself, the 360 controller just isn’t as adept at translating the controls of a fighting game.

Virtua Fighter 5 is by far the best fighter on the Xbox 360, any fan of fighting games can’t pass up the opportunity to sink their teeth into the champ. Whether it’s a better game on 360 than Playstation 3 (the online play is tempered by worse controls), is debatable, but in the end it doesn’t really matter what system you play it on, as long as you play it.