Spikeout: Battle Street review (Xbox)

Well, let us answer that question. No, you don't really want to unlock every single character, because most of them are almost identical. There are some speed differences, and some are more powerful than others, but with the exception of a few unlockable bosses, your combo strategy remains the same. The game's combo attack asks you to rise to the challenge to somehow hit the X button six times in a row. It's rough, but, thankfully, each time you execute this extreme maneuver, you'll be rewarded by hearing a deep voice that deems it to be "Cooooooool." You can mix up your attacks a bit by working in the charge-move button, but if you do that, the game won't claim that it's cool. So forget it. The charge-move button lets you pull off launchers, stun attacks, and, if you charge it up all the way, a devastating blow that will kill most normal enemies. It's not all that useful, though. More useful is the sidestep button, which is tough to master but will let you escape from some attacks once you get good at it. All kidding aside, the game quickly boils down to button mashing, and most normal enemies can't manage to put up a decent fight. The game tosses lots of bosses at you, and they're only harder because they occasionally hulk up and become immune to your attacks, giving them free shots to grab you and fling you around...unless you've gotten good with the sidesteps.

Graphically, Spikeout isn't much to look at. The character models are pretty bad, the environments are drab, and the animation is as repetitive as the gameplay. The sound is "coooooool," though. Actually, no, it's not. The music is the sort of generic metal that you'd expect to hear in a budget action game like this. The sound effects are dull, and the voice work--which consists of the game shouting out "Here comes the boss!" and, of course, the weak stuff done in the story mode--is pretty bad. Presentation-wise, this would be a pretty-good-looking Dreamcast game. On the Xbox, it's fair, at best.

Spikeout: Battle Street will find its fans. People that are totally hooked on unlockables will find a lot of dudes to unlock here, and if you're an absolute fiend for cooperative gameplay, it's nice that the game offers it up, even though you'll only get about two hours of content. Unless you fall into one or both of these camps, Spikeout isn't for you. It's nice to dream that someday someone will be able to successfully bring the Final Fight concept to 3D. But as more and more 3D games totally flub the concept, one starts to wonder if maybe this is an impossible dream.