Virtua Fighter 5 Online is, to put it bluntly, beautiful. The characters look good, the movement is fluid and the environments are breathtaking vistas with break-away elements. Certain levels feature great-looking water - some fights even occur in about a foot of water - and the water ripples around in a realistic-looking fashion. Each character has a wide assortment of costume tweaks that you can purchase as you earn gold (by winning fights), allowing you to really change the look of your character to suit your style. Again, Virtua Fighter 5 Online is definitely eye-candy.

The music is fast-paced music perfect for fighting, with a bit of Asian flair. Nothing you'd hear on the radio, of course, but music specifically for Virtua Fighter 5 Online. It does, however, fit the bill.

The voice acting is not bad, and the lip-syncing is actually pretty well done, but there are, of course, anime-inspired Asian females who have their short, staccato yelling as their intro voice clips ("ya-tah!" or similar...), but you sort of learn to expect these, I suppose.

All together, the presentation is well done. The only thing I found to be confusing was in some of the menus. Items that I would have expected to be highly visible, possibly having their own single button press to activate (such as return to the previous menu), were written out and buried under the various other options. This in no way is lowering my score, but it was a user interface issue I noticed. Hopefully, having read this, you wouldn't have the problems I did.

Previous Virtua Fighter games, and for that matter, other fighting games, regardless of pedigree, tend to follow the characters' stories. There is a (somewhat) rich storyline for characters from Tekken, DOA, Soul Caliber, Street Fighter and, yes, of course, Virtua Fighter. Hell, Sarah Bryant even had her own game. While Virtua Fighter 5 Online does continue these characters' storylines, the focus in this game isn't really on them. It's on you.

The interface in Virtua Fighter 5 Online used for selecting where to start in Quest mode is a map with a variety of Sega Arcades. Some arcades are for beginners, others are for intermediate players, while still others are for more experienced players. You begin playing by creating a custom version of a character, then selecting an arcade to play in. You play against computer-controlled opponents who are designed to look as if they were actual online opponents, as you work your way through to higher rankings. After you play for a while, tournaments will come available, allowing you to further advance your ranking. These games also provide an excellent way to practice for actual online games.

When in the Quest mode, the fights are kept interesting by having special types of fights from time to time. Some fights will be, for example, item fights; win one of these fights and you will be awarded with a special item. All fights have purses attached to them, so as long as you win fights, you will gain money that can be spent to further upgrade your characters' costumes. When you progress far enough in a rank, there are also Ranking Matches. Winning these moves you up a rank. Be warned: at higher levels, losing matches can cause you to lose experience. In these cases, a Ranking Match might indicate that you are close to losing a rank.

The different modes in Virtua Fighter 5 Online provide widely varying difficulties. The quest mode has arcades for beginner that are very easy to beat. I was surprised to find that I wailed through opponents and then most of the way through a tournament before I lost a single round. Then, with a total of, I think, two continues, I completed the tournament and ranked in the low eighties. Not bad.

Well, the difficulty in the online games is a lot more fierce. Mind you, I was waaaaaaay outclassed; the closest I got to an opponent was around 5 ranks away... and not in my favor. The point is, however, that the people who are playing online are the more experienced players. If you're not into get pwned several times in rapid succession, you'll want to use the Quest mode and the Practice modes until you've moved up to around the 5th Rank. That's the lowest rank (or highest number - 1 is the "highest" ranked) I saw online when I was playing, anyway.

If you're trying to get to know a new character, in addition to practicing with them or using them in Quest mode, it can be useful to go into the VF.TV menu and view the Exhibition fights. These are actually somewhat interesting to watch, as they have color commentary along with the fight. Additionally, you can save your own replays after a two player match and then watch these in the VF.TV section. Also, if you check out the online rankings under the VF.TV menu, you'll see that some of the fights have a camera symbol next to them. You can select these to download and watch that player's fights. This is both pretty cool and a useful learning tool.

Never has a game screamed out more for an arcade stick. (Sigh) Alas, I don't have one to use with Virtua Fighter 5 Online. (Hint, hint... Nudge, nudge...) Anyway, Virtua Fighter 5 Online puts all of the buttons on the controller to use, regardless of where they are located on the controller. This made using the 360 controller as an arcade stick a short-lived and only slightly successful experiment. If you stick to the Left analog stick and/or the D-pad and the top action buttons, you can set the 360 controller down in front of you and use it arcade-stick style. However, if you play against a strong opponent and you need the shoulder buttons and triggers as well, then this method no longer works. I did have some success with a sort of hybrid, holding only the left side of the stick, allowing me to hold it in the air, so I could more easily hit the shoulders and triggers, but Virtua Fighter 5 Online is a game that almost requires finding a specialized grip and fighting style that fits you and your character selection.

The character customization options in Virtua Fighter 5 Online are pretty cool, allowing you to really customize the appearance of your fighter. Moreover, with the heavy focus on the online gameplay, this customization actually means something; it allows you to create a character that is uniquely your style.

The replays available in VF.TV are a nice addition, providing entertainment, the ability to gloat and relive pwnage at a later date, useful insight into the way online opponents play, tips on new ways to use your favorite characters... what you get out of the movies is only limited to what you watch for.

The color commentary is a neat feature that makes the game feel more like a televised sporting event. This feature can be turned on by going to the Options menu. By selecting the Game Settings menu, there are individual selections to use commentary (or not) for Arcade and Versus modes.

The only issue I had with Virtua Fighter 5 Online was that some of the menu items weren't as easy to spot as I would have expected. For a while, I was beginning to thing that there was not a way to exit from the Online menu, since I was expecting to hit the (B) button or similar to go back. As it turns out, you have to move down the menu to the item, "Return to Main Menu." Yes, the text is perfectly clear, but usually actions that take you between modes are made more visible.

All-in-all, I found Virtua Fighter 5 Online to be fun, beautiful and, possibly, one of the best PS3 games to be released so far. It's definitely the most beautiful fighter I've played to date, and the controls are tight. I only wish I had that arcade stick...