Drunken Fist Review

Drunken Fist: Totally Accurate Beat-em-up is the latest in the trend of semi-broken, physics based titles that aim for comedy and antics over any real nuanced gameplay. There’s nothing wrong with this approach – it often leads to some good laughs – but at the same time there’s really nothing more here than about 45 minutes of the same joke on repeat.

It’s about as simple as it comes; our wobbly protagonist is a nightmare to control, thanks to being pissed up, and everyone in the town (also pissed up) wants to fight. Cue hilarity as they flail ineffectively, trying to smack each other down without doing themselves an injury.

There’s nothing revolutionary here, but it is quite funny to watch as two drunks limply swing at one another while also using each other to prop themselves up. As someone who spent a lot of years working in the pub trade I can see this game does a good job of capturing just how hilarious these drunken fights can be in real life. If a blow connects then the person limply falls to the ground, before slowly wobbling back to their feet for another round. They will eventually stay down, but it might take a few hits before that happens.

We move using tank controls which, when combined with the physics, make moving anywhere accurately challenging, and moving too fast sees us fall over as we fail to keep our balance. There are also two meters – drunk and urination – to manage. We need to keep that buzz going, but it’s also gotta come out sometime. Pissing on the floor causes a hazard that the enemies (or us) can slip on too. Finally, burgers restore health, and a stamina meter dictates our rate of attack.

Kicks use up most of the bar and are pretty much one-hit KO’s, so much so that using the punches is all but pointless due their opposite effectiveness. Every action is ultra slow too, so there’s plenty of time for our stamina to refill for another kick in between moves.

Once you’ve fought one person though, you’e pretty much experienced the full game. While some of the enemies have slightly differing attacks, at the end of the day all it takes is a wobbly flying kick to take them down. The game is broken up into seven levels, each with a set of goals to clear (beat 7 punks, 4 hipsters, or find 2 ice creams) but they all boil down to kicking everyone in the area in the face. Again, good for a quick laugh but there’s nothing here to keep us interested for more than that.

Conclusion

Drunken Fist hides wonky physics, hard to use controls and a toilet humour behind the set-up of being drunk, and while it’s passably funny for a short while, it’s also not something that will be on the playlist for more than the hour or so it’ll take to beat the seven levels.

This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.