Developer: Crazy Rocks Studios
Publisher: Crazy Rocks Studios
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Hooligan Fighters – Preview
Admit it, sometimes we all want to be a hooligan, even if it was just for a day. Mindlessly trash everything in sight and duke it out with rivaling groups, just because you can. Nonetheless, we all know that this lifestyle doesn’t lead to the finer things in life, but hell it would surely get your blood pumping in that kill or be killed scenario. With Hooligan Fighters reaching its Early Access status on Steam, it seems all of us can be a Hooligan, albeit with still a few bugs mixed in-between the punching and kicking.
The basic concept is pretty much as the introduction stated, namely you’ll have the ability to beat the living snot out of other hooligans, that are not part of your group. Thus you decide to suit up, do your hair, while you often have none, and do a bit of training to knock some teeth out. While one would expect the game to be a simple beat ‘em up, with a heavy focus on the MMO aspect, it seems the developers are doing their best to add new modes as they go. At the time of this preview, we were able to test out the Skirmish and Conquest modes, which were pretty straightforward, nonetheless amusing.
Truth be told, the Skirmish mode might just be the mode that will satisfy the most of the (future) users, as it’s simply a group deathmatch, in which the last team standing wins the match. The conquest mode on the other hand, is a bit more like ‘domination’ in many FPS games. You’ll have to spray your group’s tag on different walls, and the longer you can defend these points, the more points you will gain over time. In both modes teamwork is key, but sadly if you’re playing without any of your actual friends, it’s pretty much the equivalent of playing Russian roulette and hoping the gods grant you favorable allies and dimwitted foes.
While the overall concept of the game is original as well as very amusing, still a lot of work has to be done, especially when it comes to fluent controls and hit detection. More than often you’ll be able to hit opponents that are standing a few meters away, while you miss them when you’re practically close enough to start French kissing them. This causes a reasonable amount of frustration, when you’re doing your best to dodge and block an incoming attack. If you add this to the rather choppy controls, things might get a bit tedious over time. Perhaps this can be solved if controller support is implemented into the game. Other annoyances are, when you’re playing with friends, not being able to join any games as the queue won’t trigger properly. That being said, seeing this is an Early Access title, the player base is still growing, thus some patience may be required if you want to find sufficient foes to fight.
Graphically the experience is a mixed batch, as things look reasonably okay, especially for the topic of the game, but at the same time everything looks rather dated and lacking of details. The character models are rather simple and the environments are fairly empty and have a minimum of clutter to decorate things, which might take away a bit of the atmosphere, but you’ll be happy to know that you can buy a reasonable amount of accessories for your character. These accessories can either be bought with money you earn by playing matches but can also be bought be using real money. The latter is also riddled in other aspects of the game, which is actually a sad decision of the developers, as this makes the game lose a bit of its rugged feeling.
Same can be said for the moves your character gets to learn when he levels up, as you can again spend real money on it, which makes things a lot quicker than having to earn ingame currency. You’ll promptly notice that playing matches will grant you a ridiculously low amount of experience, making it very tempting to opt for the premium boosts, which allow you to gain experience and money faster. Nonetheless, every character is rather playable without having to resort to spending actual cash on ‘advantages’. You’ll also be able to buy other boosts, which often boost one aspect of your character, while decreasing another one. This tends to keep a certain balance intact. (Sadly, the potions you can buy tend to mess up the balance though.)
A fun implementation is the fact that you can compose your own moves list, which is fairly basic at the beginning of your conquest of power, while unlocking more options as you progress. You can decide on which combos you can perform for your punches, kicks and also special moves etc. The overall system is fairly simple, but if you have yourself a powerful team, it might be fun to try out different setups, to see which ones go hand in hand with other players. Sadly, as a new player, you’ll immediately be tossed in with players of a higher level, who will have more expansive sets of moves, making it even harder to gain experience. Perhaps something that will also disappear in the final version.
Conclusion
Even though there were a few negative remarks, Hooligan Fighters is still a work in progress and has already a lot of fun items and proves to be a great concept. While there is still some work to do to trim down the rough edges, you’ll surely have fun beating up other players online, leveling up and creating your own perfect hooligan. If you like online brawlers, this one might be a title to follow its progress.
Hooligan Fighters - Preview,
No Comments