‘Midnight Fight Express’ Review: Back-Breaking Battles In An Anonymous City
Set in a dark and dystopian city where everyone, and I mean everyone, is out to kill you, Midnight Fight Express boasts brutally brilliant gameplay and doesn’t know when to throw in the towel.
Check out the trailer here!
Our protagonist is Babyface, a former member of the criminal underworld who meets an anonymous drone asking for his help to stop the city from succumbing to a terrible takeover from the fat cats at the top of the heap. With no memories of his life, you’ve got to trust this strange new companion and fight waves and waves of enemies across bars, stations, shipyards and more before it’s too late. These levels that occur as Babyface tells his story in a police interrogation are endlessly and effortlessly entertaining.
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The super satisfying choreography and stunt performances from Eric Jacobus, who has credits on The Last of Us Part II, Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War, mean that every punch and kick lands to a devastating effect. While the art style is constrained and cartoony, the physicality of Babyface and his enemies paints blood all over the floor. As the player progresses through each level, skill points are earned to get stronger and stronger and cooler and cooler.
So you can choose abilities like sprinting and sliding attacks, heavy attacks to break the block of bigger enemies, grapple attacks where he will grab somebody and then throw them at other enemies or grab somebody and shove them to the ground to start pummeling them. Environmental finishers, like when Babyface smashes an enemy’s face into a wall, are a rewarding spectacle for your skill, and you can use gun finishers or use the different types of ammo to stop a tricky enemy in their tracks. And, you can pick up stuff, either dropped weapons or miscellanea, to bash skulls with. For example, I’ve killed with a paint roller. Do not take that sentence out of context so help me.
It's all very overpowered, even superpowered in some instances. But, there’s never an opportunity to think you’re too good at the game because there is an onslaught of enemies all the time. For each move that you want to pull off, you’ve got to know where you're going to end up once that move is ended. It's a very balletic way to design the game and it's a really great part of the game that rewards your situational awareness and adaptability. Every level is timed and you’re scored on your creativity with kills, no deaths and combos, encouraging you to try to beat your previous score and other players on the leaderboard.
The game’s development has been directed by just one person, which is an amazing achievement. It does, however, suffer from that too. Midnight Fight Express has a story, sure, but there’s next to no reason to invest yourself in the world building. Who is Babyface? What's he working towards? Who is piloting drones that are following you around? What is the giant conspiracy that's driving the plot forward?
That's not at all the highlight of the game. The highlight is the gameplay. So, when you start a level and then the drone starts chatting to the character, there are certainly words but they don’t take hold. I get past it because I just want to get on with smashing people's faces into sinks. Sue me. I did appreciate the fourth wall breaking moments and some actual memes reenacted in the game, which are funny, but what would have helped is voice acting or longer cutscenes so the story could shine.
Additionally, you can customise Babyface with cosmetics purchasable with the money that you earn in levels and completing challenges for unique fashion items. Again, Babyface is therefore anonymous as he has no identity, no solidification in the city I’m supposed to care about. When the gameplay is this good, it’s evident that the tribal tattoos and tens of different types of trousers could have been cut in order to make the entire experience as focused as the fights.
For those who savour competition and putting their skills to the test, there’s a lot to love here in Midnight Fight Express. Its pounding electric soundtrack pulls you straight into the red mist of the action and it even creates a gif of your most successful combos at the end of the level to share on social media. You might find though, once you return to the main menu, blood and bruises smoothed away, you’re as exhausted as Babyface feels.
Pros: fantastic soundtrack, super satisfying combat, variety of the levels and enemies
Cons: boring story, bloat, button mashing will likely be to blame for my early onset arthritis
For fans of: Hotline Miami, Sifu, Guy Ritchie movies
6/10: Good
Midnight Fight Express was tested on PC with code provided by the publisher. The game releases August 23 for PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S (as a day one release on Xbox Game Pass), PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Find a guide to GAMINGbible's review scores here.
Topics: Xbox, PC, PlayStation