Vigilante

"Beat em up fans, this ones for you"

Vigilante was released in an era when actors such as Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Dam ruled the silver screen. Action movies were as american as apple pie. So as the movies had Rambo, American Ninja and countless other movies like them, the arcades had the likes of Double Dragon, Final Fight and P.O.W.. IREM decided to throw a game into the action beat em up category, thus was spawned.....Vigilante.

Vigilante's story wont compell you with its plot twists nor its genius plot line. In fact this story has probably been used in some of the movies mentioned above. In Vigilante a gang known as the skinheads (although most of them have full sets of hair) have kidnapped your girlfriend, Madonna (her name was apparently changed for the Turbo Grafx version). It is up to you and soley you to save her. Throughout the game you must get to the truck which they keep her in, coincidentally by the time you reach the truck at the end of each level it speeds off at the nic of time forcing you to follow it to the next area.

The graphics department is where Vigilante really delivers, the characters are large, well shaded, and nicely animated, although they could have been better drawn. The backgrounds are great and have a lot of detail and realism in them, although you never interact with the backgrounds, enemies jump out from windows and doors, off the roofs of cars, and even come up from under you in certain areas. The backgrounds slightly clash with the characters since the characters look more cartoony than the grimey backgrounds (except ''The Bridge'' level, with a spectacular view of the New York City skyline).
The music is very forgetable, the only tune i actually enjoyed was the level one music, it really gets you into that ''lets kick some ass mood''. Even though the music is'nt plain out garbage (that title belongs to Tiger Road), It totally does not match moods of boss fights and other levels. The sounds are OK, enemies grunt, gunshots sound like respectable gunshots, even kicks and punches sound like they'd hurt.

Vigilantes controls are simple, you move left and right, jump, duck, punch and kick. Enemies come from every direction so you must be able to utilize as many moves as possible and in some situations know how to jump kick since it provides a reciol type animation after you connect with it. There is only one type of weapon that you can occasionly pick up, and that is the Nunchaku. The Nunchaku will provide the best attack in the game, if your good enough once you pick them up in level one they can last you up untill the last level. Anyways, boss fights can either be really tough (if you dont use your head), or ridiculously easy (if you do), due to the fact that on some bosses you can expose some rather cheap strategies that work. One thing about Vigilante was it was too short, some levels can be beaten in under 2:00 minutes! Now i understand that the main hero is trying to save his girlfriend and all, but they could have added at least ONE more level, just for kicks (and punches).

Vigilante is a great game for beat em up fans, it plays a lot like the classic Kung-Fu, gamers who do not like beat em ups will most likely not like Vigilante. But then again, gamers who do not like RPGs do not like the Final Fantasy series. With that said Vigilante is by far the Final Fantasy of beat em ups, but more like a Breath Of Fire. Once you beat Vigilante you'll probably come back eventually, one day, just to take on the skinheads one more time. But i doubt you'll beat it then come back again to try to obtain an even higher score (or any other reason).

Graphics: 9
Music/SFX: 7
Gameplay: 8
Overall: 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/02, Updated 05/26/02