Drunken Fist
Reviewed by Cyril Lachel on
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The one-joke approach may work for a buzz-worthy trailer, but not when it comes to a full-length game. While Drunken Fist has a silly premise that's certainly fun for a few minutes, there's nothing to keep you playing after the laughter stops. What we're left with is a crummy beat 'em up with terrible gameplay, a shallow move set and a non-existent story that leads to nothing. It's a meaningless exercise in anti-fun that neither has a point nor attempts to poke fun at the easily mockable genre. The developers truly hoped that watching an old guy stumble around the streets would be enough comedy to keep Drunken Fist afloat. They were wrong.
Rating: 30%
"Realistic" is not the word I would use to describe old school beat 'em ups like Final Fight, Streets of Rage and Rival Turf. These are games where one or two gym rats are able to defeat a small army's worth of gang members, all while riding elevators and eating chicken straight out of garbage cans. The new game Drunken Fist purports to be a "Totally Accurate Beat'Em Up," but that's like calling The Human Centipede "100% Medically Accurate." It's a brawler where an old drunk guy stumbles around the city knocking out hipsters, businessmen and punks, while at the same time dodging the fuzz and finding free beer. Sure, it's silly and stupid, but totally accurate? I think not.
There's not a lot of setup here. You play an old bearded drunk who gets into a street fight with a couple jocks for no reason, and then follows that up with level after level of fighting random people he sees on the street. This eventually takes us on a tour of the city, where we go on a life-affirming journey filled with pathos and a level of self-reflection you rarely see in video games. Nah, I'm just kidding. You mostly just drink beer and beat-up random citizens. There's no hidden depth here, it's just an old man punching people.
The best thing I can say about Drunken Fist is that it has more moves than I was expecting. On top of the typical punches and kicks, the bearded drunkard is able to uppercut, sweep, double kick and perform a very rudimentary combo. There are nine different moves in all, which may not sound like much, but remember that this is a game where a drunk guy is tripping over his own feet in between knocking out gang members. The fact that you can do more than punch and kick is kind of a miracle.
Probably the most impressive thing about our drunk hero is how much pee he's able to generate. Believe it or not, a lot of this game comes down to dealing with gauges. If the old guy doesn't drink and pee regularly, then he'll run out of health and fail. Thankfully, free beer and burgers are scattered throughout the city, once again fueling my concerns that Drunken Fist may not be "totally accurate" after all.
Look, it's obvious, Drunken Fist is not meant to be taken seriously. In some ways, it's critic proof -- if I tell you it's bad, then you're going to point out that it's supposed to be that way. That's the joke. The gameplay is meant to be terrible, the physics are supposed to be that way, and the repetition is poking fun at beat 'em up conventions. Why bother criticizing a game that isn't even attempting to be good in the first place?
I'll admit that seeing the hero of a beat 'em up stumble around and fall into a garbage can is pretty funny. It's a goofy way to shake up a genre that has always been so beholden to the tropes and cliches. But that's the only joke this game has. The developer doesn't use it as a jumping off point to make fun of the genre, but rather insists on making the joke all about this drunk guy who can't even walk straight. The fact that it's a brawler is so far beside the point that it comes across as a complete afterthought. In fact, this joke would have been just as funny in any other genre. Just imagine this old drunk guy as a basketball player or a third person action hero.
The problem with a one-joke game like Drunken Fist is that once the joke stops being funny, all you're left with is a bad playing beat 'em up. This is the kind of game where the moves are inconsistent and a simple thing like walking in a straight line results in falling down, so you can only imagine my frustration when I had to start one of the overlong stages over from scratch because I was ganged up on at the very last second. A silly thing like stumbling around may be funny for the first 10 or 15 minutes, but it's infuriating when all you want to do is beat the game. It's like playing a game with a broken controller and pretending that it's fun, because of comedy.
Oh, that reminds me, Drunken Fist doesn't have an ending. It also doesn't have much of a beginning or middle. There's really no story here and the game isn't building to anything. It just abruptly ends. No cinema, no credits, no extras. Nothing. It's just back to the main menu, thanks for playing. The whole experience left me annoyed. Not because I didn't get the joke, but rather because Drunken Fist is a colossal waste of time.
The one-joke approach may work for a buzz-worthy trailer, but not when it comes to a full-length game. While Drunken Fist has a silly premise that's certainly fun for a few minutes, there's nothing to keep you playing after the laughter stops. What we're left with is a crummy beat 'em up with terrible gameplay, a shallow move set and a non-existent story that leads to nothing. It's a meaningless exercise in anti-fun that neither has a point nor attempts to poke fun at the easily mockable genre. The developers truly hoped that watching an old guy stumble around the streets would be enough comedy to keep Drunken Fist afloat. They were wrong.
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