Try Hard: Edge of XTREME revenge
You play as any of five hitmen, each one more unlikeable than the other, as they try to make sense of their betrayal. But it's hard to get invested in the story because it's hard to care about these pricks. They are so bratty they don't even like each other. And then the game pits you into a black and brown world, with drug deals going on left and right, and you being able to brutally pummel your opponents to death via a 'beat down'. Characters end up bloody and bruised after a fight, because edge, and it seems like characters can't go two lines without cursing or insulting someone, because they are EDGY. So yeah, the plot if anything is so bad it's almost good, at least you might get a chuckle.
The easiest way to describe the game would be Yakuza but poorly done. All seven chapters take place in the same city, and you can move through the arguably small town at your leisure. Thing is.... there are tons of loading screens. The loading times aren't long per se, it's just that every area is very small, so getting from point A to point B might mean going through like 3-4 different loading screens. This makes exploration a bit annoying, because sitting through so many loading screens might kill your enthusiasm to explore. And that's a shame, because you can completely customize your characters, going through different clothing stores as well as visiting the hospital for surgery, to change your face. Heck, clothing is gender neutral, so if you want to be the toughest drag-queen in town... go ahead! But getting to the stores can be such a drag. Add to this the impenetrable sidequest system. Basically there are special characters you can fight and recruit to your side, and thus you can unlock sidequests, some that have their own content. But finding these can be a royal pain in the neck without a guide, because there are so few hints or markers or anything, coupled to the various loading screens that quickly get tiresome.
Battles against common thugs or cops turn the game into a 3-D beat'em up, you have 360 degrees of movement, a punch, a kick, a block button and a grab. You can also equip up to two different items, could be healing consumables or weapons, on R2 and L2, or why not just pick up weapons laying around or dropped by your enemies? You can recruit NPCs and bring up to two allies with you, and they'll help in these brawls. You can pretty much challenge any NPC into one of these brawls, and why wouldn't you? Your character is a prick, it goes with his or her personality.
That said, if you trigger a fight with a special character, namely characters with a name, the game turns into a fighting game. Controls and movement are exactly the same as in the brawler mode, but now the camera is focused on giving on putting both fighters on each side of the screen. That said, the camera may get stuck around stuff if you move too much, no bueno. The fighting itself is alright but a bit sloppy. Sometimes it's hard to determine when a character is under invincibility frames or not, and the combo system is a bit finicky, but it's not awful. These one on one fights can be potentially three on three fights, assuming you, your opponent or both have back up, and after one battler loses all its health the next one takes its place.
Defeating special characters grants you experience points that you can use to increase your health, strength or learn new moves. You level up these at a pitifully slow rate, so be warned.
The last thing worth mentioning is that the game offers a simple VS mode that you can play with another player or another CPU. Only a fraction of the characters involved in the story mode are available, but at least you get all the big names.
In the end, Beat Down is a very forgettable game. There's nothing too offensive about it, except maybe how hard it tries to be edgy, and there's nothing particularly broken about it, but it failed to make an impression.
5.0
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