Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance Review

Publisher: Capcom

When you think about Capcom's fighting games, you generally think of high quality for your gaming console. Not so much with the company's newest brawler, Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance. While it was not entirely unplayable, I did find myself wishing there was some point to this mix of Final Fight and Grand Theft Auto.

I Got Beatdown by the Story

Beatdown is 50% brawlin’, 30% gangs and 20% profanity. You play one of five forsaken ‘family’ (read: Mafia) members of the Zelleneti gang. I guess Italian mafia names sound trendier when they start with Z. After interrupting and disbanding a drug deal between two huge gangs, you are kicked out of the family…without a pardon. So you have to take control of the streets by recruiting other baddies, which may include friends, old rivals, and/or old Zelleneti members. Your ultimate goal is to take out the Zellenteti gang so you can rule.

Each character has his or her own unique fighting style and storyline, so the replay value is definitely there, but you essentially have to do the same things for each person. Basically you travel the streets recruiting people to join your gang, seek out information on just about anything that’s happening in your neck of the woods, and, well, beatdown anyone who gets in your way. Hence, the name Beatdown. You have a base camp, a little hole in the wall called…um, The Hole. There you save, get information from some girl who seems to know it all, and acquire jobs from your new “boss”, the owner. Oh, and you can get into bar fights if you want.

Recruiting boils down to using the local police’s blacklist you get. Just a simple phone call nets you some ‘friends’ to do dirty work. They’ll follow you around the neighborhoods just waiting to do your bidding. You can help someone get revenge, take out small-time gangs, and arbitrarily beatdown someone you don’t like. Am I teasing you enough with this Beatdown thing? All right, I’ll tell you what it is. During your quest for information, you negotiate with people for information. Then after you’re done, you can choose to let them go or choose the beatdown option. This allows you to chase them down and just beat the crap out of them for no apparent reason. Use bats, knifes, your fists…whatever you can. Also, if you have your gang with you, it’s a UFC style beatdown except 5, 10, or 15 on 1. You don’t kill the guy, just rough him up a bit. Okay, not a bit, but a lot. Honestly, I really didn’t see a need for this since it didn’t further your quest any. The option was just thrown in so they could get the title out of it.

Incognito

One distinctive feature is the need to change your clothes and/or don a disguise. In the upper right-hand corner of the screen are two icons: a shield for the police and a skull representing the gangs. The percentage next to these indicate how likely you are to be recognized by other policemen or gang members. It starts at 0% and raises from there the more bad stuff you do or the more someone recognizes you after you do the nasty gang stuff. If it goes over 100, then you will definitely be noticed the next time someone sees you and…you know what happens next. You don’t? Just remember the title of the game. So multiple times during the game you have to buy other clothes, get haircuts, color your hair, purchase accessories like sunglasses and bracelets, and get new shoes. Just make sure everything matches because you might also get recognized by the fashion police.

One-Two Punch

The fighting controls in Beatdown are nothing difficult. Punch, kick, and guard is all you have. Any combinations net you 2, 3, and 4 hit combos. You can learn more moves from The Hole’s owner, who seems to know a lot more than he lets on. After each fight, you earn experience and gain levels a la RPG style, which let you distribute points to stamina, technique and power attributes.

The camera was frustrating many times during gameplay. It was always off-center. You could center it, but as soon as you turned a corner or got in a small room, you had to get the thing back on track. Sometimes there was nothing you could do. During the fight scenes, movement became hardened and sluggish and it was hard to tell where you were since the camera moved for you.

Holy &%**, you stupid ***&%%$#$

The biggest problem I had with the game was the profanity. Granted, I understand it is part of the environment, but I seemed to be inundated with it in every scene of this game. Cursing here, cursing there, cursing everywhere. It was simply overkill and distracted me from the game quite often.

The other big problem I had were the blocky graphics. I thought I might be playing a last generation PS1 game. But no, I was on the Xbox, which can do so much better. And by the way, the footstep sound effects I heard when anyone walked --I think they just copied them from Resident Evil.

Thompson's Two Cents

This isn’t the worst game out there. It’s definitely a rental if you need some stress relief and want to Beatdown someone just for the sake of beating them down. The storylines flow nicely together, Hollywood style, and keep the pace simple throughout the game and the need to change your look was a nice touch. If you want to buy it, I caution you. Either be a hardcore Capcom fan, or a mafia movie fan in order to spend your 40 or 50 dollars.

Unfortunately, the language was deplorable, the controls inconsistent, and the graphics eye-straining. But then again, you could always just beat someone down and forget about everything bad in this game.