55. Final Fight: Streetwise

(PS2/Xbox, Capcom Studio 8, 2006)
Ok, no clever lead in, no history lesson. It's Christmas time and there's good food waiting to be eaten. So I'm going to get straight down to the nitty gritty of this entry.

Final Fight: Streetwise is abysmal beyond human comprehension.

I'm sure you get the message that I like brawlers, God knows how many of them made it into the random draw for this list. But just because they are REALLY repetitive doesn't make them bad games. Not only are many of them representative of arcade gaming at the time, but some are iconic and have storied reputations in the history of videogames.
Final Fight is an obvious landmark, Capcom basically took the concept of strolling down the street whilst scrapping and made it fun and addictive, defining a genre and inspiring a host of clones.
But that's a story for another entry...

Final Fight: Streetwise is a god-awful attempt to bring the franchise up to date for the gamers of the time. FF:S is a game trying way, WAY too hard to be "cool" and "edgy" The game is crammed with music that was dated on release and dull, uninteresting characters that can't utter any dialogue without swearing. Though the game's content is "adult" the gameplay is more attuned for a five year old. I'll gladly admit that scrolling brawlers were never human chess at it's very finest, but most of those games came out around fifteen years before this. FF:S manages to take age-old gameplay and fails to add anything really new or eye-catching. Like Fighting Force before it, FF:S proves that this genre needs to be left in the past and any attempt to revive it, no matter what the franchise, will generally be foolish and unsuccessful.

Final Fight: Streetwise was almost immediately forgotten upon release. With boring gameplay, a never-was-cool nu-metal soundtrack, an unnecessarily "adult" storyline and all hopes of success resting on the fact that people may buy it because it's got a Mature rating, FF:S rapes all the classic, knockabout fun out of the original game. FF:S is a game made by uncool people who think they know about "Da kidz" This misguided attempt to be cutting edge ensures that the result truly is the videogame equivalent of Poochie.

"WIGGITY WIGGITY, WORD UP! ROCK ON PARTY!"
"Oooh, he's one outrageous duuude."
"He's totally in my face!"