The other day I was over at a friend's house, and somewhere in the midst of our Metroid Prime 2 deathmatch, we struck up a conversation about Capcom's legacy and how much it has grown. They've introduced a number of memorable franchises over the years that have stuck with us, namely Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Ghouls n' Ghosts among others. My friend distinctly remembers Final Fight, a two player brawler that was simple but incredibly addictive, and a game that remains a treat to play even today, if you're lucky enough to run into an arcade cabinet or find it on a MAME emulator. With that, I pulled out my game rental of Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance, and we figured after a few hours of play, we would find some hint of Capcom's legacy in their current product. Well, we went into it, and we were still looking.

My friend and I gave each other what I like to call the "WTF glance". I won't explain what WTF means, but, really, it's pretty simple to figure out. Playing something like Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance and realizing it's from the house of Capcom is kind of like asking Santa for a horse and instead getting a piece of charred firewood- the impact is so brutal that it could very well shake your faith in the company. Beat Down doesn't fail in just one area, it seems to be an undergraduate in several categories.

The plot is simple. In the game, you choose from one of five different characters, each of which look to be straight out of a design school's wastebasket. That's not to say they couldn't exist, but, if they did, you probably would avoid them and brush them off as an annoying tourist. Or something. In the game, you get screwed over by one of the other four characters you don't select, and soon find yourself on a quest for vengeance. Along the way, you'll run into a number of characters, from mobster lackies to corrupt cops to other bothersome idiots that, for some reason, look better splattered on a wall.

The game does try to stray away from the norm, and it has a couple of ideas that kept this stinker from being a full-on one star affair. For instance, there are small effects that come into play. If you drink too much, the game actually goes into slow-motion, marring your reaction time and also forcing you to concentrate a little more. If you lose a fight against a particular foe, you also experience trauma, which can only be healed by talking to the right person at the hospital or the local bar. And the game has a unique approach to customization, allowing you to get a different wardrobe or even a facial appearance in order to avoid recognizance from a group of bad guys. It's not totally effective, but it is a nice touch.

If only the rest of the game had kept up, we would've gotten somewhere. But it trogs along, sort of like a dog trying to walk on just one leg. The gameplay isn't entirely wrong, mind you, but it never evolves. You're able to give yourself experience points to ramp up your strengths, but nothing changes. You've got punches, kicks, throws, and a super move that clears the area around you, but about five minutes in, you feel the repetition. Also, it seems a lot easier just picking up side weapons and swinging away at an enemy for forward progress. For fun, you can also knock down innocent non-playable characters just to rob them, ala GTA, but, really, it's sad.

The game tries to expand here as well, giving you "options" once their energy is dwindled away. You can either recruit them for future fights, watching them uselessly come to your aid and do the occasional swing-away at an enemy; rob them, which gives you extra cash- but leaves you with another enemy on your list; interrogate them, where you beat them down for answers and suffer through more corny dialogue; or beat them down, where you end up leaving them in a bloody pulp. Again, a decent addition to the system, but utterly pointless in the long run. Besides, how can you trust someone you recruit? Couldn't they easily stab you in the back?

The presentation is a missed opportunity as well. The graphics fail to rise above mediocre, both in terms of character design and level design. The terrain barely changes throughout the entire game, and only a couple of characters from the bar where you seek to drown your sorrows and get missions really stay in your mind. The rest are a bunch of oddly-dressed flunkies that wouldn't even pass for acceptable in a freak festival. Worse yet, the camera controls are flawed, and most of the time you find yourself struggling to find the right angle to avoid some crucial hits. Ugh, forget it.

Sound doesn't fare any better either. Most of the dialogue in the game sounds like it was written for a B-level action film, complete with cops that spew out threats and some dumb insults. Oh, there's obscenities, but not much thought put into them. The music is also utterly forgettable, as are the sound effects. Where's the good ol' days when we had something moving to brawl to, or even least acceptable? Here we've got something I wouldn't play at a croquet match.

Then we have the multiplayer factor, which is usually a saving grace in this department but here fails to register yet again. Me and my friend attempted to get a few good versus matches going on but, due to the game's lack of natural gameplay, nothing really ever shaped up. It's like trying to fathom a match of Time Killers when the arcade machine of Street Fighter II is right down the row- and packed with free credits, no less.

No, sorry, I attempted to my fullest to enjoy Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance, as did my Capcom faithful ally. But neither of us could find anything that offered even a glimmer of the company buried within the product. Flaws here and there overshadow the game's attempts at innovation and leave nothing but a muddled, horrific mess. If this is how Final Fight Streetwise is going to turn out, Capcom needs to stop its development. Now.

I yanked Beat Down from my buddy's Xbox and we went back into another game, and he sighed, shaking his head with his "WTF stare" back in full employ. I patted him on the back and said, "Not to worry. Capcom Classics Collection is coming this week." He smiled and nodded his head, assured that Beat Down didn't entirely shake his faith in the company. Mine either. They'll be back.