Midnight Fight Express is an adrenaline fuelled thrill ride that makes the player feel like John Wick one second and Rama (the protagonist of both The Raid movies) the next. The fluidity of the action of multiple combos, parries, throws, using weapons and the Scorpion style ‘Get over here!’ rope creates some of the best action set pieces in gaming, ever. Accompanied with amazing motion captured animation and a thumping soundtrack, Midnight Fight Express keeps the player engaged throughout its 6-hour run time. Although, it isn’t without some flaws.
The plot itself is forgettable. Our hero known as Babyface is held by detectives as he describes his trip that put him in hand cuffs. The text-based dialogue delivers this bland, revenge story with some in between mission scenes and the annoying times the action is interrupted by Babyface’s drone side kick to spout a few lines of dialogue. The mid-level dialogue disrupts the action sequence and not long into it, had me skipping most times it popped up.
The plot and text dialogue are easily overshadowed by the bone crunching action. Babyface is fast, and while he starts off weak compared to later in the game, Babyface’s fists are weapons of mass destruction. The game is easy to pick up and takes a leaf out of games like the Batman Arkham series which sees players pulling off lethal combos through linking kicks, punches, parrying and avoiding attacks, throwing, and kicking anything in the environment to stun enemies. To compliment the attacks, players have access to a 100’s of weapons including blades, heavy blunt object, and numerous types of firearms.
As each of the 41 levels are completed, Babyface can unlock upgrades that create extra abilities like finishers, parries that block weapons, throws, the rope, and a hand cannon that uses different types of ammo such as an electric blast or even hypnosis which sees an enemy to fight for you. These upgrades are vital and as the game progresses, more enemy types are introduced, they get tougher and more in number and this is where Midnight Fight Express truly shines. While fights look unwinnable, Babyface’s upgrades and fluidity of this gameplay creates some of the best actions moments in any action Beat’em-up ever. Every encounter is like a dance, where Babyface just flows into next attack, parry, rope pull and much more.
The game is broken up into some mid and end level boss fights, usually using a unique weapon, and the player will die a lot. These boss fights and other random encounters create some tough difficulty spikes, but the remarkable gameplay had me returning and learning how to change my strategy for different encounter. Also breaking up levels are some vehicle stages, and while the jet ski one was alright, the motorcycle level nearly broke me as it was not fun at all due to the ridiculous difficulty spike.
Even though the game is short, 6 hours my first time, there is replayabililty through changing the difficulty, going for higher scores to lift your grade and rank higher on the leader board, and challenges to complete that unlock clothing and money to edit Babyface’s look.
The isometric view suits the action, making it easy to always see Babyface, though sometimes it is easy to lose weapon drops. The visuals will not wow anyone, but it is the quality motion captured animation that has made the action quick and life like. The soundtrack in my opinion is fantastic. The pulsating, high energy beats from artist Noisecream fits the fast-paced martial arts action perfectly.
Midnight Fight Express is not appropriate for children. Even while blood and gore can be turned off, the story is full of violence and adult themes. It has no multiplayer or online options, although players can battle off for high leader board scores.
Adam Potts, for Adam’s full profile click here.