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System:
Arcade
Genre:
Beat 'Em Up
Publisher:
Konami
Developer:
Konami
Players:
1-4
Release date/year:
1989
Other systems:
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- Crime Fighters
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1989 Konami - Konami - Arcade
- In simple words, Crime Fighters is a quarter crunching game that takes you into the middle of a street war and lets you go ballistic. Taking control of one of four different characters, you punch, kick and bash your way through several city stages to take on an end-level boss that requires a certain amount of strategy to defeat. Through your slug-fest, you can pick up weapons, kick your enemies while they lay on the ground and simply throw people into other enemies. However, the constant repetitive nature of the game might be a little much for some gamers.
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-The Game Play-
You start out on the streets taking on enemies that come at you from various directions, punching and kicking them out of your way. As you progress through the game, you can work with the enemies weapons as well as the crowds by keeping them all in a group and pounding the hell out of them. One of the coolest features that this game offers is the simple fact that even though your enemy is laying on the ground, you can keep attacking them until they just stop getting up. A downfall of the game here is that the damage you receive is typically steep and you might find that the game is stealing life from you at every passing turn.
Now, to amplify this effect, the life gauge that you have is ticking away much like a timer. Each second takes a couple of numbers off the gauge and if you’re in the middle of a boss battle, you might find that this game is cheap by forcing you to jam quarters into the slot every couple of minutes! This little tactic is a money-maker for the arcade, because in order to get through the numerous stages, you have to keep throwing money into the machine. This can be costly and might drive some gamers away who really don’t want to spend six or seven dollars to finish the game!
Control really isn’t much of an issue as you just point your character in a direction, move them there and start attacking. The use of punches and kicks is cool, though you have to learn the range of the weapons that you pick up. There isn’t a jump feature here, so you’ll have to work on the ground only. With no blocking, if you get into a slugging contest with a group of thugs, you may find yourself looking at a continue screen more often than you really want to. Gamers with experience in the side scrolling fighting games will find that the best way to work is to stick and move.
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-The Visuals-
The areas that you fight in are large and rather colorful to look at, but the enemy and character designs are just a little too small for what you’re doing. Though the effects of your attacks look like they are impressive, you’ll find that the game just doesn’t have the visual flare that you might want from a game like this. Each stage has an urban theme and the enemies that you face vary from place to place, though it seems as if you’re fighting a clone of the same first stage enemies with each passing moment. Boss characters are larger than the rest of the pack, so at least you’ll find some difference in the overall designs.
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-The Audio-
A hybrid rock soundtrack keeps a pace pounding beat throughout the different stages. You’ll find that the theme of the game is kept at a maximum, with the soundtrack changing every so often to let you know that a boss is coming up. The sound effects on the other hand really don’t do much to improve the overall game. With your standard fare of grunts, groans and thuds, even the sound effects of the weapons being used just don’t seem to have enough feeling in them to make them all that memorable when compared to games of the same type. If you’re looking for something impressive in the audio department, you really won’t find it, but it will suffice.
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-The Verdict-
Crime Fighters is a quarter eating machine that is best played by those who don’t mind dumping a ton of money into it. One of the more interesting features is that if you play through the game once and make it, it starts over again at a higher difficulty. However, I really can’t see anyone {including myself} that would be willing to dump twenty bucks into the machine in order to defeat it completely. With the action that never stops and the control that is easy enough to work with, it balances the small visuals and the decent soundtrack to make for an average beat ‘em up game worth a look.
7/10
//KasketDarfyre
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