Release Date: December 17th, 2012
Developer: I Fight Bears
Genre: Beat ’em Up
System: Android, iOS, Ouya, Microsoft Windows, GameStick, Mac OS
Fist of Awesome was developed by an Indie Developer named Nicoll Hunt who funded this game through a successful Kickstarter campaign. This games puts you in a shoes of a lumberjack named Tim Burr who got thrown in a time line where the world is now dominated by homicidal bears that can now walk and wear clothes. Suddenly, Tim Burr’s left hand comes to life to tell Tim Burr that he must travel through many time periods in order to restore the time line back to the way things were before. As the bears stand in your way to complete your objective, you have to punch some bears in the face along the way.
Fist of Awesome is a beat ’em up game that plays like Streets of Rage, which carries the appeal of a fun fantasy to punch some bears. There are no weapons to pick up, so all you have are your punches, jump kicks, and some specials. You can hold your punch button to perform your special, which is a powerful punch (or an uppercut) that’ll drop some bears. You can also kick the dropped bears to help rack up your combo points.
The enemies in this game are certainly generic. There’s usually only one type of enemy, which are usually bear minions (with an exception or two) with the special attack that makes the bear swing their arms and hit anyone unfortunate enough to stand near that bear. At the end of each level, there’s a big bear boss with his bear minions. Aside from costume changes to the bear minions and bear bosses for every level, there really isn’t any other types of enemies to challenge you. However, what lacks in variety makes up for it in sheer numbers. Even in easy mode, the the game can be un-bear-able (see what I did there?) if the number of enemies are not kept in check, which makes up the game’s challenge. I even put down the game after I kept losing at a certain point later in the game.
With not much leeway given for anything else due to the straight-forward play through, Nicoll Hunt was able to squeeze in some indie charm in areas where he was able to, and it really shows too. Firstly, the art and the chip tune music looks and sounds like a nice indie game, which gives players a nice home-brew feeling. Like almost a nice warm fuzzy feeling when someone makes you some home made spaghetti. Even the art in the levels and palette choice fits the levels quite well. If the style isn’t enough to draw players in, the dialogue (which featured at the end and beginning of the levels) adds the humor guaranteed to make you chuckle at times, which adds more to the game’s charm. It’s certainly not as charming as Undertale due to the fact that Fist of Awesome doesn’t have much room to win people over. With little opportunities Fist of Awesome have to win people over, they sure can make them count.
Overall, Fist of Awesome is a fun, yet somewhat addicting indie title that you should consider adding to your game library. It’s a good indie title that you can waste a good hour and a half on (as it takes that long to beat the campaign). If you ever wanted to be in a fantasy where punching bears is all good and dandy, than this game will surely draw you in. Be careful though, the charm that this game has to offer will make you play this game ’til the very end!