Foul Play

The brawler genre, simple as it may be, is one of my very favorites -- I include Scott Pilgrim and Castle Crashers when discussing my favorites games. So, I was predictably excited to pick up Foul Play upon its release. The art style looks fantastic and the presentation (while gimmicky at first) is fresh and creative. Unfortunately, the gameplay is pretty shallow. Granted, the brawler genre is not known for its depth of gameplay, but, after running through the first few levels, I can legitimately say that simply mashing buttons is a viable, if not more effective strategy to defeating enemies. While it's amusing enough to try to string together juggles and combos, knowing that I could be blindly smashing keys to accomplish the very same thing diminishes any sense of reward or accomplishment I could have attained. I really wanted to like this game; it's cool looking, kitchsy, and charming. Ultimately, though, I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Maybe when it drops to around $2.50, it might be worth purchasing. At the time of writing, however, it's sitting at $7.49 during the 2013 Winter Sale. So, this brawler fan must give Foul Play a thumbs down.

TL;DR: Fun co-op, great presentation, but shallow gameplay and a short campaign not worth multiple playthroughs. The presentation of the game is without a doubt its best feature: the backgrounds are shifted by stage hands, extras in costume pretend to be werewolves, and every object earned or lore page unlocked has flavorful text included. The set pieces are wonderful, and you'll find yourself chuckling at the background gags or soaking in the atmospheric cutouts of spooky castles and ancient pyramids. It's a pretty standard beat-em-up with a token leveling system in place that grants you more moves, though you might not find the advanced skills as useful as your basic starting countestrikes. This game's mastery is based around countering your enemy's moves when they telegraph them, and its very satisfying to contunually float when you are able to chain multiple air grabs off of different enemies. Unfortunately strategies for the levels and bosses are pretty basic, and when you've seen the same lines of text many times in order to get a level's achievements, the story's charm starts wearing thin. Co-op mode is definitely the way to go, as single player becomes repetitive quickly. The game is great for a playthrough with a buddy, but is probably too shallow to make getting all of the achievements much fun.

[h1] Smashy, smashy time! Best played for coop with friend of some sort... Great reminder of goold old flash games! Make sure to grab your controller and mash buttons but with some dose of thinking... Funny story and humor will accompany along the way. Beat'em ups tend to be boring sometimes however this one is not (that much)! Main con here is the game supports only up to 1080p. If you like this one you might also check out Alien Hominid which essentially is similar style beat'em up. Don't be a lollygagger and check out the game! [/h1]

Foul Play. Let me tell you here and now, there's nothing foul about this title. In fact, it strenghtens my love for indie developers more than big publishers, developers, whatever. Devolver does it again. After Shadow Warrior being recommended by quite a few people and Serious Sam 3, which despite its flaws did provide me with quite some good entertainment, I got my hands on Foul Play. What I love about indie games is the fact that from time to time you get a game that may look like something familiar but then it throws a twist and after just a few minutes of game time you realize that there's nothing quite like it. On with the first impression shall we? Gameplay wise, despite it obviously being built with a controller in mind, keyboard works quite well. The controls are responsive and you really don't feel at a loss. That being said I don't doubt it's better with a controller. The game is presented as a standard side-scrolling brawler with combos, unlockables, skills, perks in the form of charms and so on. Nothing special about that you would think but you would be wrong. The art style is what sets it apart from any other game out there. The whole story unravels on stage. And no, I'm not kidding. You and your partner, the game featuring 2 player coop, are actors reenacting a story from a journal that you get to unlock page by page as the story progresses. As such, you always see the spectators, sometimes with a special request, the background scenery being changed and from time to time you catch the actors off-guard or even the janitor at his best. The point of each performance is to get the highest score by getting big combos, doing the above-mentioned special requests and of course by not getting hit. What's more interesting is the fact that you can't die. All you have to worry about is the quality of your performance, trying to fill the always present meter and amaze the crowd allowing you to do even more impressive stunts as a reward. I hate to finish in a negative manner but I do have some cons to point out. First off, the graphics settings are not there. That I didn't find too bad but, the game doesn't feature 16:10 resolutions. The second and last con would be the fact that the game being created with a controller in mind, all the instructions for let's say combos and controls are only pointed out for the controller even if you are using a keyboard. It's not big of a deal since the game uses 10-12 keys including WASD but a con is a con. At the end of this, the verdict would be a 9/10 the above mentioned not being able to affect my experience with the game so far in a such a manner that it fails to provide what you would expect from it. My advice? If you're into old-school sidescrolling brawlers bought into the 21st century this is a must. You could do far worse with 14.99,you could get Call of Duty: Ghosts...

This game looked really fun. It was recommended because I was playing castle crashers and I love castle crashers. So I was kind of looking forward to playing this game. I played it with my best friend when he came over. We played around the first 2 missions trying to make it as fun as we can with combos and voicing over the characters but we both realized something after the 2nd mission. It was really repetitive. all you really do is go around the screen and punch people around in the same environment. No power ups, lives, extra moves just punching the same people around the same environment for that level. This was a really big disappointment for me. The game play is there it's just I can't recomend it.

My friend persuaded me to play this with him while on skype, with the both of us acting out the story using our poor british accents for hilarious results. Many lols were had, especially with how quirky the game is. Quite a good game, with how my friend and I played Foul Play made the experience highly entertaining.

Foul Play is an original beat 'em up game where you fight for an audience. The story is told like it's a play so you're actually fighting actors in suits. The better you fight the more impressed your audience will be. Impress them enough to gain more stars and to level up, unlocking charms (which grant bonuses) and new moves (those are also fun for replaying levels). It's a charming game, with pretty graphics and enough detail in the characters. Movements could use some work though. Sometimes they're a bit limited, so it makes the game look cheap. Voice overs are nowhere to be seen, except for a few 'hey's' and 'oh's', things like that. The music also didn't impress, because I can't remember if there even was music in it in the first place, and if so, if it was any good. Foul Play is an impressive little game nevertheless and should be played if you're into beat 'em ups or if you have a lot of time on your hands (in my opinion, it's more fun to play in 30 minute sessions). [Rating: 71/100]

Quirky humor, unique game mechanics, and an original theme- What else could you ask for? The girlfriend and I play this Local Co-Op helped out by full controller support! We have a lot of fun doing our own voice acting for the scenes, really getting in to the spirit of the theme and experiencing it all [i]play[/i] out. Fantastic fun game, buy it! (Oh, did I mention I did this all under Linux? :D )

[b] O jogo é muito bonito, mas o conteúdo dele é super repetitivo.[/b]  Durante toda a jogatina, o jogo não apresenta novas mecânicas, cada fase é praticamente os mesmos inimigos só que com skins diferentes.

My my, glad I got this - a very funny platformer. If you have previously played Castle Crasher, this game is similar but more action-oriented. So what, we control a character that's supposed to perform a... foul play. While we're performing our play on the stages, we move forward, beating enemies and pleasing our audiences with good performance. The campaign is divided into five acts, each acts have five levels, each levels is approx ten-fifteen minutes long, a bit longer if you're into boss battles. The objective is simple, you just need to beat each enemy waves with style - be it by performing chain combos to fill and maintain the meter gauge (audiences' mood). Don't let it get too low or the curtain will close and game over. A bit lacking aspect, though, is that the campaign is incredibly linear - you have no option to do anything else and can only follow the direction the game wishes you to. You can, however, replay earlier stages from main menu to achieve higher scores. The combat mechanic is very simple, chaining normal and powerful attacks while deflecting the enemies or throw them against each others. And this what differentiates from Castle Crasher, it offers more lively battles and flexible ala Devil May Cry DMC but in 2D. By chaining you'll be increasing your scores and earns stars that'll be calculated at the end of each level. As you progress, you'll unlock more abilities/perks to use in game. Use these to... chain more enemies. Heh. And of course, playing coop is much more fun than alone. It's hilarious, really, to have a messed up battle on the stages. Graphic wise I'm incredibly amused. It really is that great - suitable for this game - colorful and innately bunch sense of humor drawn into the art and character designs. Special effects don't distract you from the battles and carefully blend with the stages, movement and attack animations are not sluggish and feel natural. FPS throughout the level is stable enough even during chaotic battle. Some minus points though, there are no deep customizations like AA or refresh rate and some commonly supported resolutions are not supported. But overall, I'd say the job well done. And lastly, controller support is great - and I expect it so much because this is a platformer. I wouldn't even give the game a damn great review if it had poor support, but this Foul Play is just apt at adapting controller support. Dinput and Xinput are both supported, moreover each buttons can be customized in game. No complaints from me on this aspect really. Funny thing is, metacritic user score gives this 69/100. Don't listen - it deserves more. A recommended game from me.