Super Fork Fighter Extreme IV HD Remix: Championship Edition 
 

 Pros:

• Frantic, realistic plastic cutlery combat
• Contains forks!
• New character, “Spoon,” adds variety

Cons: 

• Knife over-powered
• Violence and gore may be disturbing to sensitive gamers
• Spork only available as DLC

After the controversy over Super Fork Fighter Extreme III, it’s surprising that Galactico Super Games had the courage to release Super Fork Fighter Extreme IV HD Remix: Championship Edition, but we’re glad they did. It’s a great multiplayer game, even if  the constant screens warning against sticking actual forks in your eyes are a little distracting.
 
This latest chapter in the Fork Fighter saga contains everything you love about the series: The frantic, fast cutlery battles, smooth controls and stunning graphics you remember are all here, and there are plastic forks. Lots of them. Check out the exclusive gameplay video below to see what we mean.

 
The big news: The rumors were true: Spoon is a playable character this time around! Spoon seems a little under-powered, although noobs are sure to spam the awesome Soup Attack for major annoyance. Old favorites Knife and Fork are back, but sadly, Knife is still unbalanced -- I'm tired of being stabbed! Fork remains the utensil of choice for experienced players.
 
Which brings us to the infamous Spork debacle. When first announced at E3 2009, the gaming world went crazy over the chance to finally play as Spork, but the only way to access this hybrid-class fighter is to pay for the DLC. What a rip-off! As much as I like Spork, charging 1,500 Microsoft Points for the character is a little ridiculous, and making Spork the only character you can use on soup and green beans makes him practically a necessity in campaign mode.

 
Speaking of the single player campaign, the events of much-hated Knife and Plate’s Mystical Adventures RPG have been stricken from the series’ canon, thankfully, and FFE IV HR:CE’s plot begins at the disastrous “Dinner Party Scene” that ended Fork Fighter III: Special Limited Collector OMG Awesome Edition. As you might expect, players choose from the game’s three plastic characters and battle for supremacy at various picnics, lunch trucks and hot dog stands around the world. Victory over the final single-player boss results in unlockable “fantasy” locations like Rainbow Happy World, Tiger Plays Keyboard and Cleveland, Ohio. 

The fact that this game is actually an old cardboard box filled with some plastic forks and ketchup packets means that you can't play it on any known game system, but it does offer a wide array of compatible peripherals, including the Tony Hawk: Ride skateboard,  Dance Dance Revolution Floor Pads, Nintendo Power Glove, Microsoft Windows 3.1, Rock Band drums, N-Gage Taco Phone, Rez Trance Vibrator, Crazy Climber arcade cabinet and the Sega Activator, but serious players will need Mad Catz's Fork Fighter Touch Pad Tournament Edition Peripheral, which is only available in my imagination.
 
A brief word about the media firestorm that sure to result from this game’s release: There is a lot of gore in the game. The violence is pretty much constant, with graphic fatalities included for each character. Fork’s “Melting Plastic” death is almost too much to take. So parents take heed: There’s a good reason this game is rated M.

Overall, I give Super Fork Fighter Extreme IV HD Remix: Championship Edition 4 tines out of 5.