I am a man of simple pleasures… I love the 80s, I love retro games, I love beating the living crap out of Nazis and I love legend of TV and music – David Hasselhoff. So when I saw Kung Fury back in 2015 I had a huge smile on my face, as this Swedish martial arts comedy was a thrill ride of everything above and more. So it’s no surprise that the film also spawned a mobile game, and then some DLC, and now the whole package has been put together and thrown onto the consoles in 2023. Kung Fury: Street Rage – Ultimate Edition is selling at £16.74… which is a real p**s take if I am being honest, take away the Kung Fury side and what you have is a glorified mobile title and a sub-par Streets of Rage clone.
It’s all presented as a retro 80s power-trip, complete with scan lines running like an old CRT TV over everything. The graphics are pixelated, the action is… basic, and the enemies are Nazis.
The tale in Kung Fury: Street Rage – Ultimate Edition picks up after the events of the movie, as the Reich forces rock up in modern day America (the 80’s). You and your gang of brave warriors (most of the good guys) from the movie Kung Fury himself, Hackerman, Triceracop, Barbarianna and the legend David Hasselhoff; must defeat this Nazi threat using Kung Fu, songs, guns and battle axes to name a few of the gang’s toys they have in their retro toy box. Depending on which character you pick they also come with their own special attack. The core mode is extremely simple seeing you move left or right with attacks being automated with an almost rhythm action game feel to things, but it’s here where its mobile roots are most visible.
The two DLC packs are included – The Arcade Strikes Back and A Day at the Beach – with the second being the most “engaging”, turning the game into a proper side-scrolling beat ‘em up, in the vein of Final Fight or Streets of Rage. You move around the levels freely beating bad guys and collecting power-ups and the like. It’s the mode you’ll spend most of your time in, but it’s just a rehash of the core game mode in terms of backdrops and enemies, whereas The Arcade Strikes Back mode sees everything becoming a more wave based affair.
Kung Fury: Street Rage – Ultimate Edition aims to be a love letter to the 80s and add to the world crafted in the movie. If this was an iPhone game review it would be 100% and a mission complete, it’s worth a few quid for a cheap thrill. But it’s not… it’s a full fat Xbox Series X review that costs £17 and there’s just not enough Nazis to punch in this world to justify that price or even come close to saving it. Hell… not even the Hoff can pull it back from oblivion. Is it “so bad, it’s good”?… no. It pains me to say it as I wanted to love this game like I do the source, but it ends up feeling like a cash grab and nothing more.
An Xbox review copy of Kung Fury: Street Rage – Ultimate Edition was provided by Hello There Games PR team, and it’s available now on Xbox, PC, Switch and PlayStation for around £17.
The Verdict
Stuart Cullen
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