If you want a retro beat-em-up and are willing to lower your expectations a bit, look no further than Fighting Force. However, if you're looking for beat-em-up greatness, you're going to have to look elsewhere. Fighting Force is a serviceable game, but it suffers in large part due to its brevity, somewhat generic level design, and a frustrating camera.
I'm not going to describe the story of Fighting Force because it simply doesn't matter and it really doesn't pretend to matter. All that needs to be said is that you will take the role of one of the game's four fighters and beat up some thugs. There are some slight differences between the fighters (two of which are male, two of which are female), but ultimately it doesn't matter which one you pick. They all get the job done.
The two ways that this game can be played is solo and co-op. Solo is okay, but you should only play the game this way as a last resort. Co-op is where this game shines. With another person, a decent but ho-hum experience becomes a pretty darn fun one. It is really rewarding to work together to make your way through tons and tons of enemies. And when I say tons of enemies, I mean it. The game throws them at you like there is no tomorrow. Sometimes it seems like the game spams enemies at you in lieu of creative level design, but it works despite the fact that the amount of enemies can get annoying.
That's not to say this game is all that hard. A fairly good pair of players can easily make their way through the game's normal mode while only breaking a bit of a sweat (on the other hand, easy mode is an absolute breeze). The enemies in this game are pretty smart and guard themselves with surprising competence but it's mostly the sheer amount of them that introduces difficulty into the game. The bosses seem a bit tricky at first, but there is usually a pattern or weak spot that you can exploit, rendering them total cakewalks. Me and my brother beat most of the bosses simply by throwing crap at them before they could do anything about it, which brings me to one of the game's great assets.
The basic moves that you perform are nothing to get excited about, but the cool thing about this game is that you can use weapons like guns and knifes and bats and the like, which deepens the experience. You can also take apart little pieces of the environment and make them into weapons. Say you're in an elevator. Well, you can take off one of the handrails and bludgeon your enemies with it. The ability to use weapons and find makeshift weapons gives the game some much needed variety.
Another aspect of the game that gives it variety is the multiple paths you can take. After beating a boss or beating certain levels, the game allows you to pick the direction you want to go in, meaning that you can either go to a navy base or an army base or you can go to The Bronx or the city park, etc. If you're really into the game, these offer a bit of an incentive to go through the extremely short campaign a second or third time. And you will certainly have to replay the game to get value out of it. The game is extremely short and can probably be beaten in less than two hours if you're fairly good at it. Because of this, I wouldn't recommend this game if it was expensive. However, the game is very cheap. I got my copy for three bucks on Amazon.com.
As I said before, the fighting is pretty solid, and so are the controls (although they could be better), but the camera can get obnoxious at times. Often it refuses to give you an optimum view of the action, which can mess you up when things get tense. I appreciate that they made the game 3D instead of 2D, but they really needed to polish the camera.
Graphically the game is average. It doesn't look terrible, but it's not particularly impressive. The visuals get the job done. They competently depict the gritty urban environments where you'll do most of your fighting. Some players will appreciate the really retro atmosphere, but other players might find the presentation to be a bit perfunctory.
Sound is nothing to write home about either, but it too gets the job done and adds to the retro atmosphere with its arcadey tunes.
If you have no problem with a retro beat-em-up that's a little rough around the edges and really short, go ahead and get a copy of this. It's cheap enough so that you won't lose too much money if you don't like it. But if you have another person to play with and a fondness for this genre, the odds are high that you're going to have fun with this one.
GAMEPLAY-4/5
DESIGN-3/5
STORY-doesn't really matter.
VISUALS-3/5
PLAYABILITY-3.5/5
VALUE-1.5/5