Updating a classic game has always been a hit or miss effort. For every Prince Of Persia, you have a failed attempt at Frogger, Pitfall, and Pac‑Man . I'll grant you that many of these games came out long before Final Fight, but the worry is the same. Will Capcom, do it justice? The answer may shock you.

First off, don't believe the negative hype. I have searched the web and seen a lot of bad reviews for Final Fight: Streetwise, and I am stunned to say the least. This game suffers from terrible bugs and horrible slowdown, but the underlying gameplay is solid. If there is a word to describe games like this, its 'Imcompleteitus.' Total Overdose suffered the same fate, and is a failed potential game because of it. Why then would Capcom want to torpedo one of its most treasured franchises?

Lets start off with the negative to get them out of the way. First,we have slowdown. Massive slowdown. On a first person shooter with lots of graphic effects, this might be understandable. But on this game? The characters look nice, but the graphics aren't really outstanding. The lip synch is good and characters are easily recognizable, but there is no excuse for the game to suffer massive slowdown just because the fires are burning in the background. Also, this game is a beat-em-up. Its not supposed to have slowdown during one of its key elements. That is, its supposed to run smooth when tons of bad guys are flooding the screen. Here it doesn't, and there doesn't appear to be a justified reason for it.

This game also has a number of unnecessary glitches that could drive you crazy. The most annoying of these is an audio effect crash bug. A crash bug in a released game is an unforgivable sin, yet this reviewer encountered no less than three spots where the game flat out crashed on him for no reason. Switching Xboxes didn't help, and the disk itself was unscratched so I can only surmise these are unattended glitches in the code. Another set of glitches comes in camera angles. The most annoying glitch however, is what I call the fire glitch. Fire shows up in more than one point in the game as an obstacle. The hero, Kyle, can pick up a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, but the game gives no clue as to when the flame is actually out. The smoke could stop rising from the spot he just sprayed, and nothing is left but sparks, but the game still treats it as a damaging and impassable wall. By far the oddest thing about the game is its lack of save feature.

Finally, there is the camera. Often you will have camera that work for you, like those in Splinter Cell, those that work against you, like The Matrix: Path of Neo, and some that don't work at all, like 50 Cent: Bulletproof. In this game, the camera seems to alternate between all of them. Often being perfect to see what you are doing, often choosing the worst possible angle to show you the action. For example, upon exiting some interiors, the camera sets itself right underneath the heroes feet. While looking at the generic shoes of main character is kinda cool, it takes the game a few seconds to realize that, wait, there is no point to displaying the game from this angle, and yes, preventing the player from seeing the enemies that are attacking him is causing said player to through his or her controller at the wall in disgust. Capcom should have just taken a lesson from its other beat-em-up style game, Devil May Cry, and gone with fixed camera angles from the get go. As it stands right now, you will find yourself snapping the camera behind the heroes back more and more often as he plays.

Okay, with the negative out of the way, lets focus on the positive. The actual fighting is responsive and easy to use, but has some nice additions to satisfy the hardcore player. A and X are light and heavy attack, respectively, Y blocks, and B throws. R locks on, and L enters 'Instinct' mode. This mode speeds up Kyle's actions but doesn't slow down his enemies. Its useful for dishing out a lot of pain really fast. While locked unto someone, you can tap an attack button as they strike you for a cool counter attack. Kyle can counter attacks from any direction, making the move invaluable to use. Also, if your timing is perfect, you can tap block to get a free three second timeframe where you can hit an opponent with a short combo for massive damage. While this is amazingly useful, unless your timing is framerate perfect, your not going to be able to pull it off.

The game pays homage to its predecessor honorably. Each of the three main characters from the original Final Fight make an appearance at some point, and they are true to their moves in the first game. Guy and Hagar also teach you some great moves as you progress, which mimick their fighting styles perfectly. With little exception, each of the moves you are taught are great bonuses to your arsenal. The problem is you don't get enough of them. Original enemies, like Blade, Handsome Bob, and Andore make cameos as well, usually as arena fights but always as tougher than average enemies.

Metro City is divided into four sections, each with its own style. A number of side missions can be found by simply walking around between story missions and talking to people. These range from the odd (Cockroach Stomping), to the traditional (beat up gang members), to the homage to the classics (Smash a car to bits like Street Fighter and Final Fight before it). These side quests net you cash and respect. Cash can be used to buy things like new moves, health and Instinct boosts, and new music for the game. The more quests you do in an area, the more the people around you come to respect you. This causes them to follow you around cheering you on as you walk. Of course this also means when you run into gang members in the street they will get caught in the cross fire, which lowers your respect. The best side quests happen to be the arena pit fights. Most of the enemies in the arena are characters from the original Final Fight, as I mentioned before, but Cammy from Street Fighter also makes an appearance. There is a fun, but brainless mutli-player arcade mode game, where you play through the stages of the game like the original Final Fight. That is to say, you choose one of five characters, then proceed go thru stage after stage hacking up bad guys for the greater good.

There are numerous bonuses you can earn during the course of the game, only one of which is decent, and even that isn't worthwhile. During the game you will unlock music videos and the much celebrated original Final Fight game for freeplay. The problem with this bonus is thats its already been released on the Capcom Classics Collection, and that version doesn't have the slowdown effect this one does. One wonders why Capcom bothered to include this bonus at all.

Still, Final Fight Streetwise is a good beat-em-up for a rental. It is not as good as The Warriors, but if you can look past the SERIOUS glitches, its a fun, but short game.