Fighting Force

Action 1997 Windows Eidos Beat em up Gangster

3D brawler lacking variety

The age of brawlers/ beat em ups was that of the late 80s and early 90s, with 2D sidescroller titles such as Bad Street Brawler, Altered Beast, Batman Forever, being featured extensively on the NES, Sega consoles and even on home computers. However, they soon were forgotten or replaced by more immersive action adventure titles, though, indeed there were some 3D beat'em ups worth mentioning as well. By 1997, a game such as Fighting Force 3D felt a bit too old school and out of context given the amount of more complex gameplay mechanics that were possible. First and foremost Fighting Force 3D lacks diversity. If it had allowed for a more comprehensive list of combos or a more diverse list of play style within the characters from which you can choose from, maybe the game would have been more engaging. However, as it presents itself it soon becomes boring if not tedious. Yes, you can shoot a gun at times, but you can't hold on to it, you can run, but most of the time you will be faced by the same types of enemies, of which there are only a few. The outside areas feel bland, the interiors look a little better, but the animations are clearly not designed for these confined spaces, as your movement looks out of place within. So, while trying to stay unbiased towards 3D brawlers, and while this title is ultimately still playable and worth a half hearted go, I'd rather you go for the older 2D brawlers. For some reason, even in spite of their limitations they were much truer to the style of game that Fighting Force 3D tries to tackle unsuccessfully.

3D Beat'em Up game

Fighting Force had the potential of a great beat'em up game, but it suffered the same problems as Final Fight Streetwise, which was released years after this game. The game looks unimpressive, the gameplay feels nothing more than a mindless button masher and the lack of music makes it a boring game. In the game, you get to play as one of four characters and your job is to move around the city and beat up some bad guys. There are some parts when you have a choice of territories to go through, which in theory should raise the replay value, but the other elements of the game make the replay stay at absolute ZERO. Each of the four characters have a different reason to take down the game's protagonist, Dr. Zeng, but to be honest, I didn't even care. There is no strategy involved, making the game to feel like a button masher, the enemies aren't that challenging and some aspects, such as aiming a gun, feel broken.

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