Final Fight: Streetwise Review

Gamers of a certain age will remember the clunky charm of the original Final Fight, Capcom’s side-scrolling beat-’em-up. Armed with barrels, baseball bats and your own fists, you set about demolishing the many miscreants of Metro City, with controls helpfully limited to ‘attack’ and ‘jump’. The game’s cartoonish simplicity made it thoroughly addictive, but sadly this update has both complicated the gameplay (resulting in a horrible camera system) and, by adding grime, sleaze and expletives, lost sight of the franchise’s strangely innocent old-school appeal. Streetwise tries to fuse in elements of Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto, but the result falls short of not only those titles but also its own predecessors, failing to grasp that there’s nothing wrong with some good, old-fashioned mayhem.