Foul Play

Foul Play is a very enjoyable beat 'em up side-scrolling game. You take control of baron Dashford, a daemon hunter, and are the lead character in a stage play. The story, in which you search for your long lost father, takes you to exotic places and confronts you with all kind of supernatural beings. Depending on your performance you receive direct feedback from the audience. A high number of combo hits will earn you enthusiastic applause while low combos and taking hits will lead to booing. Pros: - good story - simple but rewarding fight controls - few combos, so you don't have to memorize tons of key combinations - good music - strong British atmosphere of Victorian times - addictive - funny at times - coop - you can improve your fighting skills by collecting talismans Cons: - some players report game crashes. After running fine for two weeks the game started crashing on me too. It took me a while to figure out that it was related to Plays.tv. The game has issues with some overlay programs.

Foul Play is an older game from 2013. It's a venerable 11 years old at the time of this review. It's a handheld (PS-Vita)/console game that's also been put on Steam as a bit of an afterthought, as it's very much designed for the handheld/console gaming audience. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. The developers didn't design the game for gaming PCs, as such the best display resolution is set at or below 720p, a very low resolution that was introduced in 1998 and became obsolete when 1080p HD entered the mainstream in 2006. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. PC gamers will be insulted by the demand from the developer that a console peasant children's toy controller should be used, despite this being on PC. Developers should try to be aware which platform they're developing for, and must never, under any circumstances dictate to gamers how their games are to be experienced. Because this is designed for handheld/portable gaming appliances, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the low power handheld gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the mobile game developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for low power handhelds forces upon a game. While this might run well on a Steam Deck, we must remember the vast majority of gamers here are gaming on PC. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a modest spike in player counts for the game. But this only happened once, around the same time that trading cards were applied to the game... so this is just card idlers getting their cards and moving on. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with no merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam? Foul Play has the preposterous price of $15 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $15 asking price for this game could get you games like "Final Fantasy XIV Online", "Wolfenstein - The New Order" or "Hearts of Iron IV". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

Castle Crashers в театральном зале.

Foul Play is a beat em up. That much is true. And I can say after playing it somewhat extensively both alone and co-op that it is one of the only beat em ups that I prefer to play alone. That is not a compliment. Foul Play has interesting ideas inside a charming package, but the execution of those ideas infuriates me to no end. The concept is interesting: Instead of going on adventures killing demons, we are instead performing in front of an audience pretending to kill demons. As such, many of the enemies are obviously men in suits. I love this. The backgrounds are obviously constructed. I love this. The dialogue is obviously theatrical and the audience's big old noggins are visible at all times. I love this. Foul Play has a lot to love. Unfortunately, it's all surface level. You don't have health in Foul Play. Instead, you have an audience meter. You build the meter by winning in exciting fashion. The meter lowers by getting hit or standing idle. In theory, this is a good idea. In execution, it causes what I believe to be a horrible design choice. Foul Play's entire premise is combo-based. You need to get big combos to get big scores. You need to complete challenges that require combos of 50, 75, or 100. The abilities you unlock as you level up revolve around the idea of getting combos and making combos easier. Do you know what is incredibly difficult to achieve when playing co-op? Ding ding ding: Getting combos. It is tremendously frustrating to feel like you're stepping on your partner's toes in combat, or vice versa. And it will happen often. Maybe this wouldn't matter much if the combat was, well, good. But it isn't, really. There are so many problems plaguing this game's combat I don't know where to start. Poor hit detection; slow, floaty attacks and movements; ambiguous invincibility frames; cluttered set design obscuring visibility; attacks that aren't properly telegraphed; the list goes on. The big enemies are a big problem. The window on the parry seems... incorrect. And the boss' attacks will often go through themselves so that you'll get hit even if you're standing behind them. I find that even though I keep leveling up and getting new moves, the best method to deal with just about everything is to parry and spam light attack. You're actually invincible when you do this, unlike certain other "power moves," which makes it a brain dead choice. Each level wants you to get 5 stars (max score), and also complete three challenges in your playthroughs. It encourages replaying levels to achieve perfection. So why, oh why is there unskippable dialogue not just at the start and end of the levels, but even throughout? Why do I need to spam the A button to get through each and every monologue instead of, I don't know, holding down B or pressing start or even checking a box to disable it. Why add to the frustration of an already frustrating experience when I need to restart an act for whatever reason? The dialogue and humor in the game has its charm, but that charm quickly wears thin when confronted by the long list of issues present. Foul Play is a product of its time. It feels like a game that's 10 years old. Hell, it feels older than that in some ways. If you're a fan of beat em ups then I will admit there's something magnetic about Foul Play. Getting Perfect Scenes and crushing enemies in long combos is satisfying and is fun. But between those bright moments I find my throat going hoarse as I scream about everything listed above. On a steep sale, for fans of the genre with nothing else to play, I suppose I would recommend Foul Play. But I can not for the life of me call this a good game.

Палец вверх этой игре можно поставить только за визуальный стиль. Рекомендация исключительно формальная чтобы не ставить отрицательную оценку игре. Вся игра это представление разыгрывающееся в театре. Полоски жизни в игре нет вместо нее зрительский интерес который растет с выполнением комбо ударов по противникам, если он упадет до нуля вы проиграете и придется начать эпизод заново. С геймплеем же все не так однозначно, в игру было скучно играть, очень однообразно, ведь всего задействовано две кнопки для ударов, ещё есть захваты и прыжок которыми я пользовался лишь в конце. Всего в игре пять представлений по пять актов, в финальном пятом всего два акта. Из полюсов игры можно выделить то что она легкая. В начале каждого акта есть испытания но их не интересно соблюдать, от надписи что вы провалили испытание ни жарко ни холодно, они не влияют на сюжет. На мой взгляд жанр BEAT 'EM UP себя изжил и мало кому интересен. Когда в конце шли титры в игре был указан 2006 год, возможно двадцать лет назад в это можно было сыграть с интересом, сейчас нет.

Enjoyable beat them all

amazing game, fun achievements, great gameplay

Ein toller Co-Op Titel, die Theater Hintergründe sind schön und witzig gestaltet. Das Gameplay ist leicht zu erlernen.

Oyun hata veriyor.. Çöpe giden para ve zaman..

Juego normalucho que está bien para pasar el rato en coop.