Spikeout: Battle Street reintroduces the laughably bad beat 'em up story, with Spike Jr. (son of the original Spike, we assume) being informed that his father has gone missing, and that rival gang (we should say team, as they're never referred to as gangs) Team Inferno is causing mischief in Diesel Town, the hometown of Team Spike. Spike Jr. goes into town to put the hurt onto these pesky thugs, who all seem to look rather similar - perhaps as a result of mass inbreeding? We'll never know. Story developments are revealed to the player by pre-rendered video scenes, complete with the terrible, arcade-style voice acting we've dearly missed in years past, which is so bad it'll make your ears bleed profusely.
Ooh look, sixpence!
The fighting mechanics of Spikeout: Battle Street can be described as simple at best. In fact, they're mind numbingly dull and really quite limited, with only one main attack button and a charge button (which can't be mixed in with your combo as well as Dynasty Warriors) making up the essence of your offensive fury. There's no real variety available for mixing up attacks, just bash the X button six times in a row and move on to the next guy, unless you want to use a throw move to knock down a crowd, or a charge move to finish your opponent in one hit (which isn't very feasible most of the time, given the time required). In terms of defence, you've got a button which you can hold down to sidestep, but that's it - no blocking, parrying or counters here. Weapons can be found around the stages, but for some reason Sega has seen fit to make these rather difficult to pick up and put down, not to mention the fact that they're not really all that more effective. Enemies are rarely mixed up - you could be fighting six of the same enemy at one time, though the developers have done very little to distinguish the abilities of different enemies or even provide them with decent (if any) AI. Your opponents will just stand on the spot and take whatever punishment you dish out, with the occasional enemy throwing a wild punch that might possibly hit you, as he has most certainly had the time to check for wind resistance beforehand. At the end of each segment, a boss fight will take place. Save for their appearance and special abilities, bosses do very little to distinguish themselves from the masses of regular enemies, even possessing the same lacking AI routines.
Two game types make up the meat of Spikeout: Battle Street, but they're virtually identical. Story Mode is a single player affair which puts you in the shoes of various Team Spike members as you go toe to toe with various Team Inferno goons throughout a score of highly repetitive stages which are broken up by the aforementioned horrible cutscenes. Battle Street mode lets the player and three friends fight through the stages of the story mode without the whimsically bad movies and other clutter, and even makes the game a little more challenging. Co-operative play is also available over Xbox Live, which is really quite groundbreaking for this genre; it's just a pity the game is as exciting as a weekend at an old folks' home.
Perhaps our dreadlocked friend should see a GP about that severely inflamed elbow
The sadistic freaks who like to endure the punishment offered by Spikeout: Battle Street are going to find that it is a really short-lived experience, with the main game coming in at a mere 2 hours, with little replay incentive offered. A handful of unlockable characters and arenas are available, but the process of unlocking these is just masochistic in nature, and should be avoided in order to maintain one's health. Xbox Live co-operative play could have been something meaningful, but finding someone to play with will be an impossible task, given the game's unbelievably limited availability and the fact that nobody would want to waste their time playing this trash.
Being an update of an old Naomi board game (by a developer not particularly concerned about a console that's dead in its homeland), one could have anticipated that Spikeout: Battle Street wouldn't be a graphical showcase, but the game's appearance is absurd. Big chunky characters with very little detail, low polygon counts and rigid animation appear on backdrops which are about as alive as a rich man's taxidermy collection. Sound isn't exactly anything to speak highly of either, with generic guitar riff music and those awful, awful voiceovers.
Sega was so cheap when designing the graphics that they didn't even give this guy pants!
Spikeout: Battle Street is a disappointing effort by a studio which knows better. Dynamite Cop and Zombie Revenge were steps made in the right direction by Sega, but Spikeout is absolutely atrocious. Absolutely nothing beneficial can be gained from playing this game. With extremely boring, repetitive gameplay and atrocious presentation, Spikeout: Battle Street is best left on the store shelves, though its freakishly limited production run will ensure that it is buried by the sands of time, which can only be a good thing for Sega.
This review is brought to you courtesy of Infinite Gameplay, with unlimited game rentals starting from $19.95 a month.
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