Lawrence.com

It baffles me that Capcom my favorite third party developer can release great games like Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry 3, and Killer 7 in the same year as Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance. While they consistently put out AAA titles, they have a tendency to release a true disappointment every once in a while (Chaos Legion comes to mind). Beat Down goes beyond the term "disappointment" and breaches into "utter failure" territory.

To be fair, the ideas are there. The idea of beat-em-up with RPG elements is admittedly enticing. I've always loved Final Fight, Streets of Rage, and the old TMNT games, so I assumed this game would at least be mildly amusing. I was wrong. You'll start by selecting one of five characters, each with obvious pros and cons. Rather than going with the tried-and-true "wander around and beat up everyone" approach to this type of game, Capcom has tried to do too many things with the gameplay, and failed at every last one of them. For instance, you can recruit people off the street to be in your gang, and they'll be a phone call away from your side. Sounds good, but the AI is absolutely abysmal, and they spend more time running around oddly and staring at enemies than they do actually fighting.

Another attempt at innovation comes in the form of disguises. There are two numeric values displayed at the top of the screen one that indicates your likelihood of being recognized by gangs, one that indicates your likelihood of being recognized by the police. These values are in the form of percentages, a la Metal Gear Solid 3's camouflage meter. You can don disguises, get haircuts, and even undergo facial reconstruction in an effort to alter these numbers. While a nice idea, I'm not exactly looking to play dress up in a game like this, and it really adds nothing to the gameplay.

Most of the game involves you running around the small city of Las Sombras, talking to other characters, beating them up, and interrogating them. If you approach certain characters, it will go into a traditional one-on-one fighting game view. In this mode, your objective is to knock down their "Pride Gauge" to a low enough point for negotiation to be successful. Once you've knocked their pride down sufficiently, hitting the O button will give you several options Rob, Interrogate, Recruit, and Beat Down. Interrogating them will sometimes yield useful info, but other times it will be something useless that you could have just as easily read in the instruction manual.

The actual fighting engine is atrocious, involving only two basic attack buttons and a throw. Almost any fight can be won by madly hitting Square and Triangle, and requires no strategy or skill. Some fights are handled in this one-on-one manner, but others will be free-range situations in which your gang members can get involved. The basic button layout stays the same in this situation, and it's just as inane. L2 will pull out weapons such as boards and brass knuckles, while R2 will generally give you powerups such as a giant piece of chicken that you pull out of your pocket.

Basic logic is a notion completely absent in this game. For instance, the first time I was arrested, I was excited by the concept of having to break out of jail. Past games have required the player to think of clever ways to escape prison scenarios, so this should be fun, right? Oh wait, no:..you just have to punch the cell door open and run out of the police station. Fantastic.

There are countless moments such as this that show the developers clearly didn't spend enough time in production. Laziness pops up everywhere, from misspellings ("car theif") to the fact that 95% of the cops in Las Sombras are the exact same character model of a big bald black man. Oh yeah, and most of the cops in the city fight hand-to-hand for some inexplicable reason, they rarely use guns. In what could only be a glitch, my character would say "Damn:you're stronger than I thought!" after every single fight, as if he'd just lost.

Graphically, there's really nothing to note about Beat Down. They're not terrible, but it's entirely bland and generic. On the audio side of things, get ready to hear the same 4-second loop of crappy music every time you step out onto the main streets. There's many laughably bad moments in this category, such as the cheese-guitar riff that plays after every fight you win. Voice-over work is pretty bad, but certainly not as bad as the dialogue. The game tries far too hard to be gritty and adult, and ends up sounding stupid. Every line seems to have some unnecessary swearing just to sound cool. I'm all for swearing in entertainment, but as long as it fits the dialogue realistically. I may hear 75 F-bombs in a single episode of Deadwood, and it sounds unforced and appropriate. Meanwhile, hearing it in almost every single conversation in Beat Down regardless of topic - just seems silly.

This is one of those games that I honestly can't recommend to anyone. If you're into beat-em-ups, just wait until Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. If you want an action game featuring RPG elements (leveling up, learning moves, etc), pick up Devil May Cry 3. Beat Down is a $40 game that wouldn't even be worthy of a $20 price tag.

Graphics: C

Sound: D

First Play: D

Last Play: D-

Gameplay: D-

Overall: 62% D-