I hadn't heard many nice things about the Shaq-Fu games before, but I did hear plenty of not-nice things. From my experiences, I don't really think that's justified. Shaq Fu is short, but it's not really BAD, just different.
Shaq-Fu is a fighting game featuring a mummy named Sett. It also features Shaquille O Neal as the main character. It's by EA, "Delphine studios," and probably some other people too. It has a Vs. mode which doubles as an Arcade mode when you don't have a second player, a Story mode, a tournament mode, and options. The options are fairly standard, stuff like adjusting time and controls.
The gameplay is fairly simple. Control pad is move, guard, duck and jump. A, B, X, and Y are punch and kick with two versions of each. L works with the control pad: if you hold L and press left or right, you'll dash, If you hold L and down, you'll form a temporary anti-projectile shield, and if you hold L and a direction while next to the opponent, you'll throw them. R taunts the opponent. There's also a fury bar right below your health bar that rises as you take damage, and when it's maxed out your character flashes red for a while, but I haven't noticed any actual uses for this yet.
The controls feel somewhat loose, but not in a bad way. Characters almost seem to be floating sometimes, but you get used to it quickly and it's not really a problem. Specials are performed a bit differently than in most fighting games. Commands are performed by pressing a series of directions, and then an attack button. The difference is, only left, right, and down are used. For instance, Shaq's flame kick is Down, Forward, Kick. Not Down, Down-Forward, Forward, Kick. Some other unusual combinations are used, like Forward, Back, Forward or Down, Back, Down, but once you figure out what they are it's pretty simple to perform them on a regular basis.
There are 7 characters, and they all play very differently. They're also well balanced, with the exception of Shaq, who is actually too WEAK. His only specials are a low, spinning projectile and a point-blank flaming spin kick that does lots of damage. His forward dash also sucks, so it's hard to get close enough to use his flame kick, which is his only really good attack. And you're only allowed to play story mode with Shaq.
The game's defining element, though, is the silliness. It's never laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it's not bad for a SNES fighting game. Whenever a character, any character, even the final boss, gets seriously injured, their character portrait changes so that it looks like they're about to cry. In Vs. mode, each character has insults specific to each other character. Interestingly enough, if you go Shaq Vs. Shaq, the winner calls the loser ugly, even though they're the same player.
All in all, I'd say Shaq-Fu makes a nice little diversion from traditional fighters, but not enough to pay more than $10 for. I'd give it 6/10, for above average.
Quote of the game: "My name is Kaori and I'm going to seriously damage your body!" - Kaori