One minute you’re just one of many thugs in a long line of other thugs working for one of the major crime syndicates in the corrupt city of Las Sombras and the next you find yourself betrayed by the same group you once considered family. The anger you feel boils your blood and all you can think about is beating the men behind this betrayal and beating them without mercy. Ah, you think, I’ll form my own crime family that will rival those backstabbing fools and finally lay my vengeance upon them. This is exactly what happens in Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance for the Xbox, a fighting game with some interesting ideas.

In the beginning of the game you are asked to pick from five characters (Gina, Raven, Jason G., Aaron and Lola), each with his or her own distinct fighting specialty and weapon of preference. If you pick Jason G., for example, your weapon of choice would be a bottle while his fighting specialty would be Double Hammer Punch (a high-impact punch that does double the damage). Gina, on the other hand, prefers a knife and specializes in the Gattling Kick move (a series of quick kicks). The story is different for each character but the underlying theme is the same. You are a seasoned enforcer in the Zanetti crime family but for reasons I won’t go into you and the other four main characters are betrayed by the family and thus framed for murder. Chased down by the Las Sombras police as well as other underworld figures, you vow to get revenge.

Yet the road to vengeance is not an easy one to walk. First you’re being pursued by the city police both honest and crooked, and secondly the city is filled with gangsters out on the streets that can recognize you right away. You’re left to walk through a small map that is the city of Las Sombras but you’re free to explore side streets, subway stations and even enter buildings such as clothing stores, bars and even a hospital.  While there’s a city complete with a police station, shopping district and a basketball court among other things, the city itself feels small and cramped.

The shops you can enter just don’t offer clothing options for when you’re bored with your character’s appearance, changing clothes serve to conceal your identity from the police and rival gangster. There are plenty clothing options (shirts, pants, hats, sunglasses, etc.) and, in the Shopping District you can even change your hair color or style your hair in a different way. Yet sometimes these things aren’t enough and you’ll even resort to more drastic measures such as getting plastic surgery (where you can pick from different noses and other facial features). Of course, these things cost money and the only way you’ll earn it is by beating up rival gangs, rob the random pedestrian and accepting sub-missions like clearing the subway of a group of punks.

You’ll get into many fights in this game and the more fights you win the more experience points you earn to level up your fighter’s stamina, attack and technique skills. The best part about leveling up is that your fighter can now become strong enough to make more damage in fights you would have easily been knocked around had you skipped straight to the heart of the matter. Leveling up on your technique makes it far easier for you to negotiate with other brawlers you’ll encounter. Negotiations are simple and one of the game’s highlights. Come across a bruiser and you can either talk him into joining your gang and follow you around to help during fights or you can shake them down for money, information or just perform a bloody beat down that just results in your opponent getting beaten to death so you can be free to search his or her corpse for money or items.

Unfortunately even these things are ruined by the game’s forced attempt to be a dark and cool. Interrogations should be a great way of finding out useful information like finding out where the leader of a rival gang is hanging out. Instead, though, you get such gems like “Err, um, a new skirt is available at the Rag Shack” or “Um, taxis help you get to certain areas a lot quicker.” Not every fighter you meet will eagerly join your ranks but once you’ve gained a reputation you’ll be able to have two of them walk around with you and you can always get phone numbers so you can call them up when you need an extra fist. There are even thugs that require you to pay them to join up. With up to a hundred characters, there are enough fighters to make up your army.

The sad part is that even with these good ideas the fighting itself becomes the most disappointing of hurdles you must deal with. You’ll be able to unleash some basic moves well enough such as punches, kicks and grapple moves but the more complex moves lack polish and feel awkward. Often times you’ll miss a lot, punching in the direction an opponent was standing seconds ago. Weapons can also be used but they are often not effective in your hands as they are in your opponent’s hands. Top it off with opponents that can be easy to beat and others will knock you out (if that happens you’ll take control of one of your recruited gang members until all three of you are wiped out). Just about the only time the fights feel good is one you’re drunk or taken a dose of bad healing pills. When this happens things slow down enough for you to get in some solid punches and kicks.

On the graphics front, Fists of Vengeance is not a very good-looking Xbox game. Occasionally we’re treated to some decent animated cutscenes but overall the game lacks detail, better textures and less PS2-quality jaggies. The character models aren’t bad, though, and it’s good to see facial bruising on your character. The city, though, is unimpressive and too small so you’ll see everything you need to in the first half of the game.

As I mentioned above, the game is trying too hard to be dark and cool and thus fails to be both. The dialogue sound roughly translated from Japanese and it comes off as awkward during cutscenes or when you’re talking to other character in game. Adding profanity to the awkward sentence structure just doesn’t help. Worse yet the voice acting is amateurish and the soundtrack is recycled often within the game. Even the sound effects just don’t make an impact.

As a fan of fighting games, I was one of many gamers looking forward to a game that promised to introduce many interesting new elements in almost the same vein as Shenmue II did a long while back. Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance does possess many interesting elements but they are overshadowed by the game’s hard to ignore blemishes. If you’re a fighting fan you will be disappointed so do yourself a favor and look elsewhere to get your fighting game fix.

Gameplay: 5.0
Not quite the best controls suited for the fighting genre, Beatdown’s biggest letdown is its poor handling of the specialty and beat-down moves. The erratic controls make for awkward brawls across small and uninteresting streets. The ability to recruit your own gang is a nice touch but it's the little things like changing outfits and facial features via plastic surgery that really stands out.

Graphics: 5.2
Graphically speaking, the Xbox has seen better looking Capcom games before but in the case of this game it has done a sloppy job of displaying great textures, good lighting and detailed character models that really stand out. Even the environments don’t look as good nor are there great visual effects. On the bright side there’s neat bruising.

Sound: 4.5
There’s very little to like in the sound department as well with its atrociously written dialogue that’s voiced in the most unintentionally funny way and repetitive soundtrack. You can even forget environmental background noise because you won’t hear much except for a passing car or two. The only thing good about the sound effects are the sounds of characters receiving quite a beating.

Difficulty: Medium
When your opponent is a drunkard with a piece of lumber as a weapon you can expect to thrash him or her without breaking a sweat. Then you go up against a lightning-quick opponent with a samurai sword that makes short work of you within seconds. The difficulty level rises and falls constantly throughout the game so expect many easy fights mixed in with ridiculously difficult ones. 

Concept: 5.5
There’s much to like about Fists of Vengeance such as the constant changing of your character’s appearance and his or her ability to recruit street thugs willing to join your gang. There are many choices to make in this game and some have interesting results while others - like interrogations or beat downs - fall rather flat. There are five different endings available depending on what character you play.

Multiplayer: 4.0
The multiplayer in the game isn’t even worth mentioning seeing as it’s just two players fighting against each another using familiar Las Sombras landmarks and brawlers you meet or recruited in the single player game and the five main characters.

Overall: 5.0
Alas Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance just isn’t able to rise above its glaring flaws to bring us the unique fighting game it should have been since the game was announced a long while ago. It’s sparse moments of truly enjoyable fisticuffs just come too late in a game that tries too hard to be cool. Fighting fans, this is one you should simply rent or skip altogether.