A former member of the most feared criminal underworld is pulled back into a life of violence, intense fisticuffs, and an adventure that spans city-wide. Blood will be shed and criminal masterminds must be stopped. Everyone is an enemy and the only comrade is a talking drone, claiming that the entire city will be taken over by criminals once the sun rises.

This is not the next summer movie blockbuster, this is Midnight Fight Express from Jacob Dzwinel and Humble Games.

Story

The story of Midnight Fight Express is a simple one. You play as Babyface, once a part of the city's largest criminal organization but somehow your memory got wiped. You wake up in your apartment with the city ablaze and chaos ensuing outside. Before you can comprehend what is happening, you are greeted by a talking drone that advises you there is no time to talk but the city needs saving. Apparently, that life of crime was in the past, and it's time for you to turn things around for the good of the city—a modern vigilante. 

From that point on, the story slowly unravels the biggest mysteries. Questions such as, who is Babyface? Who is the person controlling the drone along your entire adventure? Who is behind the master plan to take over the city and wreak havoc? The story advances mostly through conversation with Droney and also cutting to another point in time during a police interrogation. Babyface gets caught by the police and is interrogated in the search for answers. I thought this was an interesting dynamic to keep the story moving, since all parties, including the player, are discovering the story at the same time. I really enjoyed the story for MFE and appreciated its twists. It kept me engaged throughout and delivered a lot more than I expected.

Gameplay

This third-person brawler is all about style and speed. The combat is fast and fluid, allowing for a solid setup of combos and creativity. All of the programmed fight choreography was mo-capped and it really shows. Movement is super clean and can look very realistic, giving MFE an added touch of polish that is not commonly seen with these types of games. This is especially true with indie titles. Punches, kicks, and finishers all look stylish and fluid. 

Combos and skills can be unlocked as you gain skill points and progress through the game. These character progression options were a great touch and allowed me to focus on areas I felt were most useful according to the way I fight. I found myself unlocking most of the parry upgrades first since I usually took a more defensive approach. One skill that came in handy was the ability to parry and steal an enemy’s weapon in the process. This is extremely useful when in a room with armed enemies.

The fighting system has a similar mechanic to the Batman Arkham games, where the opportunity to parry is done with a press of a button, once the prompt is shown. Combos are consistent with landed attacks and will cease if there is too long of a pause between attacks. Some enemy attacks can not be blocked due to the type of weapon that they are wielding. You can either dodge or possibly block it if you have another weapon in your hand that can withstand the attack.

There are 100 weapons in the game that can be picked up at any time during a fight. All weapons, including guns, have a durability meter and will break after extended use. The guns feel good and can be aimed with the right joystick and pressing the trigger, however, they can not be reloaded. If you are out of bullets, you can chuck the gun at an enemy's face before pummeling them to the ground for a finisher in true John Wick fashion.

Players will be happy to see such a large variety of weapons present in the game, ranging from guns, knives, chairs, katanas, wrenches, and jackhammers. Even if I could list them all, I wouldn't want to spoil the fun. Some of these weapons are purely comical and should be experienced for yourself!

The game is broken down into bite-sized levels, with a whopping 40 levels in total. Some of these levels can take as little as 2 minutes to as much as 15 minutes to complete. Of course, the difficulty is a factor, but I would have to average it to about 8 minutes per level. I really appreciated this quick in-and-out experience and it allowed me to play three or four levels at a time and come back later to tackle more. I can see this being a huge appeal for handheld gamers. Anyone looking to play this on their Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch will be glad to hear that most levels can be completed fairly quickly. This favors a drop-in drop-out play style, perfect for on-the-go. That being said. The entire game took me roughly 7 hours to complete my first playthrough.

The ability to customize your character to a large extent, unlock the ability to practice your fighting skills in the “playground” arena, and a wide variety of maps to play through really make MFE feel like a hefty package. There is a good amount of content here with the variety that will keep you playing well past the credits. Locations range from city streets, building tops, and jet-ski gun fights just to name a few. MFE lets you experience all of those cool action scenes you’ve always wanted to try from the movies.

As far as gameplay variety, this is a brawler from beginning to end. You will pulverize baddies throughout the entire campaign and that roughly 7-hour experience feels just right. Any longer and I think it might have overstayed its welcome. The game attempts to break up the non-stop fighting with a few vehicle-based levels that all play very similarly to eachother. They were a welcome addition and provided a nice break from the fighting, but I wish there was a bit more depth here.

The game is clearly influenced by Hotline Miami, with a vibrant and criminal dystopian atmosphere. With electronica music pumping throughout the campaign and the cast of wild characters you run into throughout the city, it definitely delivers a very chaotic and entertaining aura.

Audio and Visual

This soundtrack is booming. Brought to us from the talented Noisecream, the soundtrack does a fantastic job keeping you at the moment and feeling the rush. This is a “one man against the world” type of scenario and the music is very fitting. What is even more impressive is the amount of variety the soundtrack offers. Every single level has its own song, giving us a whopping 41 levels and songs to experience. 

Sound effects are ok, punches and kicks sound the best, while weapons could have used a bit more depth. The guns unfortunately do not sound as intimidating as one would hope and heavy weapons, like wrenches and crowbars, don't have weight to their swings. With such a huge variety of weapons, it's nice to have them feel unique but it would elevate the experience to have them sound unique too.

The game is filled with a dark, yet vibrant theme and gives off a very dystopian feel. The levels are designed beautifully and provide a great variety to experience. One level consisted of a church that had stacks of money filled throughout the entire church and priests surrounding you with SMGs, a truly unique experience that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The character models are the game's weakest points. Although they do not look bad, they can sometimes lack detail when examining them up close. Luckily, this is easily missed when actually playing the campaign since the majority of the view is from above.

Replayability

It took me about 7 hours to complete the story and roll the credits. This was purely a straight shot to the finish line, so there is a decent amount of game here. There are 40 levels in total, add the ability to view leaderboards for each individual level and the option of completing challenges on each of them. Challenges unlock customizable options for your character as well as game-changing perks and skins. Include the multiple difficulty options that can alter gameplay mechanics such as health regeneration, enemy types, and the ability to customize the game exactly how you want to experience it. All of this adds up to a ton of content to keep you busy and to keep you fighting.

What it Could Have Done Better

The story of MFE was great and although I do not mind reading text throughout, I feel like this story could have benefitted from some great voice acting. Unfortunately, there are no voiceovers in the game and the entire story is revealed through text. This doesn’t put a damper on the story itself but the experience could have absolutely been elevated with the inclusion of voiceovers.

Once I completed the story, I was interested in playing through the game on a customized difficulty to change up the formula. This was great fun but I would have loved to see an endless or survival mode implemented. A wave-based mode is always welcomed and I loved them in the Arkham games. Maybe we will see one later down the road in the form of DLC.

Verdict

Midnight Fight Express is one hell of a ride. It's super chaotic and non-stop action makes it a stand-out release this year. I can not recommend this game enough. I had a blast playing it and will continue to enjoy it for quite some time. The story was great, with lots of dark humor and comical moments scattered throughout. The fighting feels great and will keep you hooked with its freedom of variety. I’ll probably be picking it up on Switch once that launches in September, so I can enjoy this ass-kicking masterpiece on the go.

Midnight Fight Express launches on August 23rd for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.