PC Fists of Rage (Beat-em-up Recommendations?)

Games
1

Just coming off an Arkham Asylum high, and looking for more beat-down action. Any recommendations? I was briefly tempted by Beats of Rage, but actually looking at the trailer cured me of that…I’ve got an old-ish PC (Pentium D 2.6 Ghz == lowest possible dual core) with a decent graphics card (8800gt), but feel free to suggest your favorite flavour of beat-down awesome.

Currently a bit tempted by:

  • Dynasty Warriors 4 Hyper - cheap @ $15! (plus I’ve got the $5 at D2D), and I’ve never played a Dynasty Warriors game “for reals” before, so not much worry of having seen it before (which is what most reviews keep talking about it seems)
  • Dynasty Warriors 6 - demo was pretty good, but it’s double the price of DW4 @ $30. Is it worth an extra $15 bucks? I hear that lots of characters have been cookie-cutter cloned too in this iteration…
  • Warriors Orochi - again, it’s $15 more, but then seems to have a bazillion characters to play with…Story is apparently dense for non-fans, but tag-team sounds cute…
  • Devil May Cry 3/4 - looks combo-riffic, but a cast of one/two characters looks paltry compared to tens…although better developed combat system?
  • Zeno Clash - although I have to say compared to the scale of the contenders, your kill count is in the tens instead of hundreds…
  • Prototype - more superhero beat-down, but perhaps/likely stretching my hardware too far

What are your thoughts, qt3 hivemind?

2

Buy a console.

3

Have you played Assassin’s Creed 2 yet? I recommend it for both the excellent combat mechanics and the refreshingly immersive recreation of historical locales. Don’t know how it runs for the PC, but I would guess that it has gamepad support? Considering that it is relatively new, I don’t know if it meets your specs, but you got Batman AA to run on your rig…

4

Blade of Darkness, if you can find it, is an old gem:

5

This. Then get Bayonetta and Dante’s Inferno.

6

Zombie Smashers X is a freeware River City Ransom clone.

Ragnarok Battle Offline is an anime 2D action RPG/beat-em-up with different characters to try. Takes some work to get it downloaded, set up, and translated.

7

Zombie Smashers X? Released 2001? Greeeat.

8

Buy a PS2…

GOD HAND

9

I really can’t think of any good choices here. Devil May Cry 4 is out for PC and requires a dual-core, but it’s not too intensive.

10

SFIV, DMC3SE, DMC4, all the Guilty Gears have great native PC versions. And then you have MAME and pcsx2 for most everything else.

ed- should also mention that gamecube/wii, dreamcast, naomi, cp system, namco system, etc emulation is now quite strong as well.

ed2- can’t believe I forgot Melty Blood/Re-ACT and all the MUGEN stuff.

11

I adored this one when I finally played it sometime around late 2004 (IIRC). I played the Knight character (specialty: one-handed swords + shields) and made it through about 90% of the very lengthy single-player campaign, but it just overstayed its welcome by a bit. It looked amazingly good for a game from 2001, and the different levels were varied and gorgeous, and some of the combos you could pull off were really bad-ass.