After experiencing a golden age during the 16-bit generation, the brawler genre has all but disappeared from the videogame landscape. While games like Final Fight and Streets of Rage were among the most highly regarded games of that era, you’d be hard-pressed to think of a game released during the current and previous console generations that embrace the ethic that the aforementioned classics created. The creators of the two 16-bit standard bearers of the brawler (Capcom and Sega, respectively) have both recently released titles that attempt to resurrect the genre. Capcom’s entry, Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance tries to incorporate many features of today’s most popular titles while managing to retain the essence of the arcade brawler classics. Can Beat Down manage to return the genre to glory, or has Capcom lost the fight for good?

Story:

Beat Down certainly has the markings of a brawler from the get-go. Like the arcade and 16-bit classics, a small group of like-minded fighters let their fists do the talking against a large, oppressive street gang. You choose one of a group of five of that gang’s former top dogs, ousted because they were too strong. It’s not exactly Shakespearean, and you’ll likely find it less than engrossing most of the time. As in the past, the brawler genre doesn’t lend itself well to crafting a plot, as most gamers often could care less about why they’re fighting, instead focusing on the when.

Capcom attempts to grab your attention by making use of a storytelling element from the contemporary gaming industry’s bag of tricks - profanity. While the violence is certainly brutal, it’s nothing that will shock today’s gamers, and the use of sexuality is nearly non-existent. Beat Down, by and large, earns it’s ‘M’ rating solely by its unprecedented level of strong language. We’re talking F-bombs aplenty, people. While it’s not uncommon to hear a curse word here and there in some of today’s most mature games, Capcom throws swear words into the dialogue so often you’d think they had a patent running out. What sets Beat Down apart from most of the other games employing the tactic is that in those games, an infrequent use of profanity highlights the emotion of a scene or character. In this game, however, the offensiveness does not come from the words themselves, but the utter lack of need for them in the first place. The game is served little by the language, as the usage betrays the old-school brawler feel the game tries to cling to.

Gameplay:

Beat Down attempts to fuse the classic brawling system of Final Fight and the like with the massive party-building motif of games like Suikoden and Pokemon. The fighting engine in Beat Down is as good as any other 3D brawler on the market, which isn't really much of a compliment considering games like Fighting Force and Time Commando populate that extremely short list. The fighting engine is solid, but hardly at the level of a dedicated one-on-one fighting game. There's just enough moves, weapons and fighting styles to keep you from slipping into tedium.



Well, there are worse ways to lose a fight...


There are many role-playing elements infused into Beat Down, with varying degrees of success. First and foremost is the character recruitment system. When the main character approaches certain people in the street (the ones with names, basically), you have the option to recruit them (as well as interrogate, rob, or challenge them to a fight). Depending on their loyalties, they may agree straight up, but more often than not, they won't offer up their cash, info or services without a fight. When your opponent's energy is low enough, you can finally shake him up and get what you originally asked for, or you can perform the titular move - the "Beatdown". This will remove that character from the game, making him or her unrecruitable, but it will net you the most experience points. Alternatively, recruiting a character will build a bigger gang, but at the expense of higher stats.