Fighting Force is a 1997 3D beat ’em up developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive for the PlayStation. It began life as a pitch for Streets of Rage 4, planned as a Sega Saturn exclusive, but Sega pulled the license after a dispute over porting it to rival platforms — so Core Design reworked the project into a new property. You choose from four playable fighters, Mace Daniels, Ben “Smasher” Jackson, Hawk Mason, and Alana McKendrick, taking on the criminal mastermind Dr. Dex Zeng, who had predicted the world would end in the year 2000 and, when New Year’s Eve 1999 passed without incident, decided to bring about the apocalypse himself.
How to play
You fight through waves of Zeng’s mercenaries across a police-cordoned skyscraper, a shopping mall, a subway, and a Coast Guard base, with occasional choices of route that change which section you fight through next. Move with the D-pad (arrow keys in the browser), punch with Cross (Z), kick with Square (X), and grab an enemy up close with Triangle (A) — once grabbed, pressing another attack button throws them. Circle (S) jumps, and combining it with an attack button chains into a jumping strike. Weapons dropped by downed enemies, from bottles and chairs to knives and guns, can be picked up and swung or fired with the same attack buttons for extra range and damage.
Tips
- Lean on Triangle grabs against tougher enemies up close — a grab-and-throw clears space faster than trading punches.
- Keep an eye out for dropped weapons; a chair, knife, or gun outranges your fists and speeds up crowd control.
- When a level offers a choice of route, try the other path on a replay — it leads through a different set of enemies and hazards.
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