Punk Justice Review

Bob | 08/03/2009 | no comments

Fighting games will always have a home on gaming consoles and handhelds. It really doesn’t matter what you’re fighting, as long as you get a chance to beat something up, you’re going to jump at the chance.

A little while ago “Punk Justice” came out in the app store and I was pretty interested to check it out. The dev, Wastedyuthe, had given the game a really nice mix of cartoon graphics and photo realistic backgrounds to give the game a pretty cool graphical look. Plus there was a nice story mode behind it all. Oh, and you’ll get to beat up a lot of thugs along the way… definitely a “must play”.

In “Punk Justice” you play the role of Jed. In a quick “comic book style” opening you see that gangs overrun the parks of your neighborhood. This becomes a big problem for you and your girlfriend and you vow to win back the streets… er… parks. Now in some circles it means writing your representatives, contacting the police for more rounds, perhaps even setting up a good neighborhood watch that will patrol the area with flashlights and good intentions.

But this is the world of “Punk Justice” and Jed is a BA with a big red Mohawk. He’s not going to write some elected official, he’s going to take his fists to the park and beat some sense into anyone who gets in his way.

I’ve already mentioned the look of the game. It helps set the game apart from all of the other fighters on the market. Everything is very clean and everything you need to see is quickly identifiable. There are various gang members you’ll need to fight (including women) and all of them have a unique look to them. Though I will admit that after playing the game for a while you see them so much they lose a bit of that uniqueness.

Controls are a big part of fighting games and usually is main thing that make or break a game. Punk Justice has some very sharp controls. It helps that they’ve kept everything simple. You have two punch buttons and two dodge buttons and can pull off a few combo moves with them. The buttons are laid out nicely and you’ll have no troubles hitting them, or the gang members.

Punk Justice is easy to play, but you’ll find a lot of challenge within the game. What starts off as an easy game with you winning every fight, but after a few bouts you’ll see that winning back the park is no, well… walk in the park.

The sounds are also nice for the game. In fact, everything about the game is very nice for the $1 you’ll spend on it. I have to give the devs a lot of credit for adding in some nice touches.

The game plays in two modes, one is obviously the “win back the park” campaign that I’ve been talking about. There is also a quick mode that will let you just pick a fight just for the fun of it.

Where the game falls a bit is in the fact that it can be repetitive. I really liked the way the story was starting to layout, but after a while it just didn’t progress enough. Seeing the same cut-page with “Off to another park” playing out didn’t have the same satisfaction as a real story.

Also, it would be nice to find a way to add some sort of on-line play. The mechanics of this game seem to be perfect for creating a character and going toe to toe with people around the world.

Punk Justice is a great game for the price. You’ve got plenty of punching and it’s all wrapped up in a nice graphical look with just enough story elements to make it interesting. I’m looking forward to more from Wastedyuthe.