Vigilante

"Watch out for the weirdest attack ever: the hug of death!"

Developed by Irem, Vigilante is a side scrolling beat'em up, similar to Final Fight or Double Dragon. Unlike these two titles, however, Vigilante has many flaws in nearly every aspect of the game and is not exactly an entertaining experience.

In this game, a group of thugs has kidnapped Maria, the girlfriend of your unnamed character. Apparently, instead of considering a sensate course of action, like calling the cops, he decides to go after the rogues by himself, alone and unarmed, equipped only with his jeans and white T-shirt. This attitude will reveal itself to be very unwise, as you will soon notice when you start playing the game, since your hero quickly becomes overwhelmed by legions of enemies.

You progress in left-to-right scenarios, and your character can perform simple moves, like punches, kicks, and flying kicks to attack anyone that comes into sight. Your task is, as usual, to reach the end of the level alive, where you will face a suitable boss in every area. Even though it sounds like a simple premise, it is actually incredibly hard and frustrating.

Even at the very first stage, you will find yourself seriously outnumbered, as there is only a 1-player mode and the enemies insistently pop up from every side (and there is no brake to this, they simply keep coming no matter how many you take out). One second of distraction and your character will be beaten to death. There is a particularly annoying kind of enemy that comes running up to you, but he doesn't hit or kick you, instead he... hugs you. That's right, he hugs you. And what a deadly embrace that is, as it drains your energy like nothing else, and the only way to escape alive is to quickly press all your buttons like crazy.

The collision detection of Vigilante is also very poor. Certain times you are sure your attacks just hit the enemies, but instead they suffer no damage and swiftly run toward your character to hug him to his death. What an unpleasant way to go down. Also, it doesn't help that your kicks and punches have a very short range. Most of the time, your only hope to finish a level alive is by finding a nunchaku, since this is the only weapon you will ever get, and you practically won't stand a chance against the bosses if your hero tries to attack them with his bare hands. In case you die in one of these boss battles, by the way, you can use a continue, but you will be sent back to the beginning of the (very, very long) stage. “Frustrating” is the best word to describe the gameplay overall.

At least the visuals of Vigilante are actually good. The backgrounds are varied (consisting of city streets, alleys, junkyards and so on) and have vivid colors, and the characters are large and detailed as well (there is not much diversity, though, as there are like five or six different types of enemies in the whole game). The audio quality is just average. The tunes and sound effects are not memorable, but they do fit the action well.

In general, Vigilante has many major flaws, like the cheap gameplay and insane difficulty, that prevent any kind of fun while playing it. Don't waste your time with this one, in case you like beat'em ups, go play a real worthy game, like Double Dragon or Final Fight.

Overall – 3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 02/04/08

Game Release: Vigilante (US, 1988)