Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance
Score: 55% ESRB: Mature Publisher: Capcom Developer: Capcom Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Action/ Fighting
Graphics & Sound: Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance sounds much better than it actually is. On paper, the combination of an old-school, Final Fight style fighter, combined with modern enhancements like RPG-like customizable characters sounds like a great idea. However, the idea never amounts to anything and is hampered by sloppy implementation. Graphics and sound go a long way is showing exactly what to expect from Beatdown. As with nearly every aspect of the game, a few neat visual elements are overshadowed by a generally poor showing. Overall, Beatdown is a good looking game. Had it been released a year ago, it would probably be considered great – but this isn’t the case. City environments are very small and confined, taking away the feeling that you’re in a big city. In addition, environments are very dark, so it’s easy to get turned around and not know where you are in some areas. Character models fare slightly better than the environments, but only because of the depth of customization available and real-time bruising that shows just how messed up your character is. Things aren’t much better on the audio side of things. The soundtrack is sparse, and what few songs that pop up are overly generic. The same can be said about the vocal performances, which feel phoned-in for the most part. A poorly written script doesn’t help the cause. At times, it feels like the game is trying too hard to be “dark and cool”, making it sound silly and played out. This is especially apparent with the game’s deliberate use of profanity throughout the script. I generally don’t have a problem with these types of things, but only if they enhance the experience. Here it just feels like they were thrown in for the sake of saying it.
Gameplay: Beatdown tells the traditional “you against the world” tale. As one of five enforcers for a local mafia boss, you’ve been falsely pinned with murder. This leads to a double-cross in which your entire family, as well as most of the city, is coming after you – sending you on a revenge-fueled quest to take down the entire criminal empire. Depending on which character you choose to play as at the start of the game, you’ll get a different story arc. Sometimes you’ll run across the other four members of your group, but usually it’s just you and a group of random thugs. Most of the game’s action takes place outside of a local bar, which serves as a central hub for the entire game. Here you’ll gather information that leads to plot advancements and other useful information. Once outside the bar, you’re free to roam the city as you see fit, recruiting members for your little gang of thugs or shaking down the locals for information or money. Typically, you’ll find mugging people the more useful of the two options since their information is rarely useful unless you really want to know about what clothes are for sale at the thrift shop. Beatdown’s RPG elements are what help the game stand out from your standard beat ‘em up game; or, this is the theory at least. As you roam around the city and create havoc, you’ll gain recognition from local gangs and law enforcement, which is displayed as a recognition meter on the screen. The higher the meter, the more attention you’ll garner. More attention means more problems from the cops and street thugs looking to make a name for themselves. In order to keep the meter down, you’ll have to constantly change your appearance. This includes changing hairstyles, clothes and even dabbling in plastic surgery. In theory, the idea is a neat addition, it’s just not executed all that well. The size of the city is so small and confined that it’s impossible to not run into people and up your recognition meter. In addition, clothes and other enhancements aren’t exactly cheap either, so you’ll spend more time trying to stay away from people rather than immersing yourself in the game. A two-player Versus mode is also available, though it feels a bit tacked on and not worthy of much mention.
Difficulty: Going into any game, you expect to see some gradual ramping up with difficulty. Beatdown eschews this concept by constantly rising and dropping the difficulty. One minute you're beating up a bunch of drunk slobs who can barely lay a finger on you, the next moment you're dodging a stun-baton wielding cop, only to be followed by more drunken slobs. These inconstancies make it extremely hard to gauge just how easy, or difficult, the game is because you never really know what you're coming up against next.
Game Mechanics: Each of the five characters has their own fighting style, adding a little depth to what is a pretty simplistic game. There are two types of fights that make up the core gameplay experience. Random battles where you’ll take on small armies of thugs are the most common and make up most of the game. Most of the time, you’ll find yourself going up against groups alone, though you can eventually recruit people to join you and start a group of your own. The more you interact with members of your group, the friendlier they’ll become. Eventually you can even learn to pull off special tag-team moves. However, pulling off these moves is a pain, and usually not worth the effort. At times, you’ll be able to engage in one-on-one fights where the action becomes confined to a small area and plays out like a simple version of Street Fighter. One-on-one fights occur with either random bosses or NPCs. NPC fights are usually more interesting than the boss fights since you’re given a few more options when dealing with them. If you manage to break an NPC’s spirit, you can either get them to join you or rob them. Boss fights, on the other hand, are really just button-mash fests where you’re trying to do more damage faster than the other guy. The premise of Beatdown is a solid one, it’s just not well executed. At times, it feels like Beatdown is pushing to “modernize” brawlers too hard; as a result, the game just doesn’t flow all that well and ends up shooting itself in the foot.
-Starscream, GameVortex Communications AKA Ricky Tucker
Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance NHL 06