Final Fight: Streetwise
The side-scrolling brawling that rocked our worlds back in the day returns in current-gen fashion. See what we think inside!
Published: May 19, 2005
If there were ever a standout genre that marked the days of old school gaming, it could in fact be the side-scrolling beat 'em up. Double Dragon, Streets of Rage and Final Fight vitalized the class and had you decking and tossing goons left and right, while never forgetting to obey the faithful commands of the infamous blinking "Go" sign. We've always held a place for the nostalgia-inducing brawler in our hearts, so you can believe we were quite ecstatic to hear of one of our favorite franchises in the genre was getting the PS2 treatment with Final Fight: Streetwise. The game certainly doesn't reduce itself to the limiting 2D scrolling (those days may be long gone, unfortunately), but it instead immerses gamers into much more of a free-roaming world. True to the title, though, Streetwise is all about the ass-kicking and often calls for such a "last resort" when forced to defend your loyal brother, Cody (remember him, folks?) or girlfriend, Vanessa. E3 gave us the opportunity to see just how well the translation worked, and well... actually, no, don't force us to limit our judgment to a simple sentence, just read our damn impressions.
The first "episode" we got our chance to duke it out in threw us into the money-run world of underground fighting. Amongst the throng of screaming onlookers tossing their green like it came a dime a dozen that circled the ring, our protagonist, Kyle Travers, sits recovering in the corner, noticeably bruised and receiving pep talk from his brother and aforementioned Final Fight familiar, Cody. The shmuck of the hour is "Handsome" Bob, an obnoxious egomaniac who seems content he can hand just about anyone his ass as he stands proudly in the ring. About time to show this guy who's boss, wouldn't you say?
Emerging from the corner and going toe-to-toe with Bob, the controls and overall feel of the game comes quite naturally. Kyle can employ a handful of three and four string combos with his combination of light and strong attacks (used respectively by the X and Square buttons), which appear on the screen in button format to your advantage. Circle serves as your grab button, and once an enemy (our in this case, ol' Bob here) is your grips, he can be knocked around assorted knees and blows or simply flipped across the ring. Once your opponent's on the ground, simple taps of your attack buttons can offer stomps and kicks for good measure. In our scenario, despite his hard-to-evade charge attack that comes right off the rebound of getting dropped to the floor, "Handsome" Bob could be disposed of in one try with the proper tenacity and the reward came in the form of moolah (a rather significant asset in this game, so it seems) and respect from the onlookers.
Next up, in episode form, was an all-out bar fight alongside brother Cody. Before actually stepping foot into the modest establishment where destruction was surely to ensue, we had the chance to explore the open city, ripe with pedestrians, shady city-goers and ladies of the night asking for your services (it should be vice versa, we know, but one particular vixen asked for the rescue of her brother). Despite the surprising openness of the gritty metro, finding our destination was never a problem (and heck, the green arrow pointing to it couldn't' have hurt). The barroom brawl served as an ample opportunity to put to use weapons, coming in the form of pool sticks, baseball bats and later on, uh, shotguns (silly enemies who think they can use them on you better than you on them), where several powerful cracks can be delivered before the weapon eventually breaks (as indicated by a color-coded meter that appears on-screen).
A neat feature that popped up in a later episode involved paying a gun-wielding guy of your caliber in street cred to offer his services and watch your back while attempting to flip a car over via button-mashing. That same scenario had us fending off waves of green-eyed bastards who'd been infected by some madman's experiments. We're interested to see how (and if, dare we say) all of this ties together to the main story.
It's certainly exciting to see a classic brawling franchised revitalized on the PS2, and our hands-on time with Final Fight: Streetwise definitely showed off the non-stop beat 'em up action in full form. The variety in fighting scenarios is definitely refreshing too, from pit fights to bar brawls, as we saw, and we've got our hopes high that the developer keeps things just as interesting throughout the game. The street date on this one is winter 2005, so we'll be sure to keep tabs on this project as it comes along.
The first "episode" we got our chance to duke it out in threw us into the money-run world of underground fighting. Amongst the throng of screaming onlookers tossing their green like it came a dime a dozen that circled the ring, our protagonist, Kyle Travers, sits recovering in the corner, noticeably bruised and receiving pep talk from his brother and aforementioned Final Fight familiar, Cody. The shmuck of the hour is "Handsome" Bob, an obnoxious egomaniac who seems content he can hand just about anyone his ass as he stands proudly in the ring. About time to show this guy who's boss, wouldn't you say?
Emerging from the corner and going toe-to-toe with Bob, the controls and overall feel of the game comes quite naturally. Kyle can employ a handful of three and four string combos with his combination of light and strong attacks (used respectively by the X and Square buttons), which appear on the screen in button format to your advantage. Circle serves as your grab button, and once an enemy (our in this case, ol' Bob here) is your grips, he can be knocked around assorted knees and blows or simply flipped across the ring. Once your opponent's on the ground, simple taps of your attack buttons can offer stomps and kicks for good measure. In our scenario, despite his hard-to-evade charge attack that comes right off the rebound of getting dropped to the floor, "Handsome" Bob could be disposed of in one try with the proper tenacity and the reward came in the form of moolah (a rather significant asset in this game, so it seems) and respect from the onlookers.
Next up, in episode form, was an all-out bar fight alongside brother Cody. Before actually stepping foot into the modest establishment where destruction was surely to ensue, we had the chance to explore the open city, ripe with pedestrians, shady city-goers and ladies of the night asking for your services (it should be vice versa, we know, but one particular vixen asked for the rescue of her brother). Despite the surprising openness of the gritty metro, finding our destination was never a problem (and heck, the green arrow pointing to it couldn't' have hurt). The barroom brawl served as an ample opportunity to put to use weapons, coming in the form of pool sticks, baseball bats and later on, uh, shotguns (silly enemies who think they can use them on you better than you on them), where several powerful cracks can be delivered before the weapon eventually breaks (as indicated by a color-coded meter that appears on-screen).
A neat feature that popped up in a later episode involved paying a gun-wielding guy of your caliber in street cred to offer his services and watch your back while attempting to flip a car over via button-mashing. That same scenario had us fending off waves of green-eyed bastards who'd been infected by some madman's experiments. We're interested to see how (and if, dare we say) all of this ties together to the main story.
It's certainly exciting to see a classic brawling franchised revitalized on the PS2, and our hands-on time with Final Fight: Streetwise definitely showed off the non-stop beat 'em up action in full form. The variety in fighting scenarios is definitely refreshing too, from pit fights to bar brawls, as we saw, and we've got our hopes high that the developer keeps things just as interesting throughout the game. The street date on this one is winter 2005, so we'll be sure to keep tabs on this project as it comes along.
