Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance

"This came could've been good but- LOADING"

When are fists used for anything but vengeance? And boxers don't count! Sorry. Anyhoo it's time to hand out some beatings in this Capcom beat'em up. And we all know how good Capcom is for it's beat'em ups! Well...at least the 2D kind.

STORY
You play as one of five different metrosexual mobsters. You show up to a place expecting to exchange money and drugs. Instead you find the dealers dead and an army of your buddies turn against you. Since you weren't really that bad, why did your gang betray you? As you escape you go undercover, dish out a lot of beatings, and aim to take the city back, one horrible stereotype at a time. The story was actually well done with tons of cutscenes, and some nice camerawork to go with it. And each story is the same, but depending on which of the five you choose, you get different scenes and endings. The more I played the more I wanted to see. Too bad the gameplay changed my mind. Anyhoo, onto the review.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are very nice. Not something that blows me away, but it's well detailed nontheless. I like how bruised and ugly you can beat a guy. I didn't like how bruised you could make a girl. Seriously this game made me uncomfortable as I beat the snot out of countless hookers. Odd huh? The character models look nice, the cutscenes are directed great as well. So I couldn't complain about the look.

SOUND
The audio has okay voice acting. Some sound great, others have the most annoying voices I've ever heard. And this game is not for kids. Lots of F words in this one, ho ho lots and lots of F words! The music is way too repetitive. You're stuck in this city the whole game and it seems like the music remains stuck with you as well. A bunch of licensed songs would've been nice instead of the generic rock. Oh and I hate how ANYTIME you make any kind of progress, you get a guitar solo. I learned where the bar is! (solo plays) ROCK ON! I leveled up! (solo plays) ROCK ON....TO THE MAX!

GAMEPLAY
Onto the gameplay, which could've been sweet, but instead fails horribly. The game is a cross between Final Fight and an RPG. When you start off you have to buy new clothes so the thugs and police don't recognize you. The choice of clothing is scary. You can make a man wear a haltertop and a mini skirt. I'm not kidding. You can have a screwed up crossdresser if you wanted to. Both men and women can wear every article of clothing...so at least nothings restricted I guess. Like GTA: San Andreas you can customize everything about your look. The clothes, jewelry, hair styles, hair colour, and face transplants too. In case you don't like the face you've got. But in order to change each appearance feature you need to locate the stores that hold them...if they're open. And if you have enough cash.

You get cash by accepting missions from the local barkeep, or randomly beating the crap out of people and robbing them. You also start your own gang as you can threaten the local thugs to join your side. Or you rob them, interrogate them, or as I often did, stab them repeatedly with a knife and kill them. Yay! You level up the more you fight, thereby getting stronger to beat the stronger ones down too. Sounds like a great game right? It could've been. There are 2 things that ruin the whole experience and bring this review down to a 5.

LOADING. The loading in this game is huge and frequent. I was falling asleep trying to walk 2 blocks. It seriously kills the whole experience. What makes it even worse is the fact that like Grand Theft Auto you're in this giant open city. And you have to walk everywhere. No cars, no instant teleportation, nothing. You have to walk and fall asleep in mid-walk. And also you find that all you do in this game is walk from one side of the city to the other, beating up random losers and rinse, repeat and load. Loading is rarely the deciding factor of a game for me, but it is here.

IN THE END...
This game is boring, and the loading doesn't help so I'd suggest a rental to see if you like it. I wanted to get into the story but I hated walking around. I like fast action games and this one stops me every ten seconds...for ten seconds. Hopefully you have a higher patience than I did.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/09/06