Time to kick some terrorist ass! note
Crisis Beat is a 1998 Beat 'em Up video game developed by Soft Machine and published by Bandai for the PlayStation.
Christmas eve, 1998 — a luxury cruiser named The Princess, en route from Tokyo to New York, has been hijacked by a Western terrorist group led by the renegade military leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Whigen. In the ensuing takeover, four lucky passengers made it out of the chaos:
- Eiji Garland, an off-duty Japanese-American cop, one of the best in the force who's looking forward to return to the States... until the attack occurs while he's in the lounge;
- Julia Jefferson, a Belgian supermodel attending a photoshoot, with her kid sister Mily in tow, and while Julia made it out, Mily is nowhere in sight;
- Keneth Kurova, a Russian Special Forces operative investigating the theft of a Russian superweapon, whose mission somehow leads him to the Princess;
- Yan Fei-Hsu, a British teen and karate expert, working a part-time job as a cleaner on the ship.
Needless to say, when push comes to shove, it's up to the four of them to take on the terrorists.
And that's all the plot there is to the game. Cue the ass-kicking and terrorist-punching!
Crisis Beat contain examples of:
- Action Fashionista: Julia Jefferson works as a supermodel during her spare time, and she just happens to be an expert fighter when the terrorists took over, during a fashion shoot with her in the spotlight, no less.
- Affectionate Nickname: Everybody calls Julia Jefferson by her initials, J.J. Including Milly, her younger sister abducted by the terrorists.
- Alliterative Name: Julia Jefferson, Kenneth Kurova.
- An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The entire game takes place on Christmas eve, where an unlikely quartet of heroes have to prevent a stolen nuclear weapon on a hijacked ship from being activated by midnight.
- Ass Kicks You: Julia can do a short hop to ram an enemy with her butt to instantly knock them off their feet.
- Automatic Crossbows: The Bat-class enemies use crossbows against the heroes, although their firing rate are really slow.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: In two-player mode, either as Eiji and Julia or Keneth and Yan.
- Badass and Child Duo: In the second styoryline, Keneth (an adult kickboxer) and Yan (a teen karate fighter) forms a team, although the "child" part may be questionable on Yan's part. Julia and her kid sister Milly is a more straightforward example.
- Big Sister Instinct: Julia would pummel the snot out of dozens of enemy mooks in order to save her kid sister Milly.
- Broomstick Quarterstaff: Yan's preferred weapon is a broom, for… reasons. Executing her special move allows her to shove her broom's tip into an enemy and fling them into the air for extra damage.
- But Not Too Foreign:
- The main hero is named Eiji Garland, a Japanese-American cop.
- The youngest of the four players, Yan Fei-Hsu, whose nationality is described as British. But given her name, she could be of Chinese / Korean descent.
- Co-Dragons: Lieutenant-Colonel Whigen has two followers, Lieutenant Lou and Lieutenant Otto. They are among the few bosses who actually have dialogue during cutscenes, commandeers lower-class mooks throughout the game, and are fought one after another (Lou, and then Otto) before the heroes confront Colonel Whigen.
- Colonel Kilgore: The game's Big Bad and Final Boss, Lieutenant-Colonel Whigen, who leads the terrorists.
- Cowboy Cop: The main hero, Eiji, an off-duty policeman on a cruiser bound for New York right before the Colonel and his terrorists took over. Given the game being a Die Hard pastiche, naturally it's up to him and a bunch of unlikely heroes to save the day.
- Dark Action Girl: The enemy mooks aren't limited to just male members. There's a female mook enemy called the Rip-class who attacks with twin blades, as does Whigen's henchwoman, Lieutenant Lou who serves as one of the last bosses (third from last to be precise).
- Destination Defenestration: If you pulled off the Automatic Lock-On on an enemy while near a window or glass barricade, your character will immediately pummel the enemy through with a powerful uppercut – cue breaking glass.
- Die, Chair, Die!: EVERYTHING in the game can – and should — be used as an Improvised Weapon, or flung into enemy mooks, from benches, tables and stools, to shipping crates, telephone booths and Exploding Barrels and even Christmas Trees. Heck, in the shopping mall of the lower deck, a scale model of the Princess is being displayed, and even THAT can be smashed into bits with the Automatic Lock-On move!
- "Die Hard" on an X: A luxury ship named the Princess has been hijacked by terrorists, and four unlikely heroes consisting of Japanese-American policeman Eiji, Belgian supermodel Julia, Russian kickboxer Keneth and British teen karateka Yan must work together and take down the villains. For bonus points, this all takes place on Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning.
- Dual Wielding: Rip-class enemies use dual razors on the heroes, while Daugh (first boss for players selecting Eiji or Julia) uses twin swords.
- Elevator Action Sequence: One of the many, many action segments have the players escaping into an elevator and climbing to it's top, only to be assailed by hordes of Shorty-class enemies who comes summersaulting over the elevator's other side.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The game's title. There's a crisis, and the heroes have to beat their way out.
- Excuse Plot: The ""Die Hard" on an X" scenario is just a plot device for players to kick loads and loads of ass in between cutscenes. The game does try to create a backstory involving Julia's sister being kidnapped and the terrorists having some sort of superweapon, but players can skip every cutscene when it happens and they wouldn't miss a damn thing.
- Extremity Extremist: Every non-weapon attack that Kurova does uses kicks.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Lawman-type enemies wield flamethrowers, and deals great damage on the heroes — the savvy players will target these enemy types as soon as they appear. Fighting two or three of these at the same time and the game starts becoming one heck of a challenge!
- Flunky Boss: Riot, the ship's first mate and The Mole serving Colonel Whigen, whose boss fight have him surrounded by a seemingly endless horde of Sharp-type enemies. Players would use this to their advantage, however — as Sharp-type enemies drops a knife upon being defeated, the players can grab their knives and throw it at Riot for extra damage.
- Giant Mook: The Gantt-type enemies are larger, stronger, and can tank more hits than lower-class mooks. They are among the only mook-type enemies that can actually survive an Automatic Lock-On attack from players, if their life bar is at maximum.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Colonel Whiggin's mooks have firearms and grenades at their disposal, but somehow 70% of his underlings chose to fight the heroes with their bare hands. The same applies to the heroes who beats up an insane amount of enemies with their fists (or feet in Keneth's case).
- The Goomba: The Troop-class enemy, soldiers clad in white who shows up in large numbers in the early levels. They are unarmed, attack with fists, have pathetic health and serves as warmup before players get to pummel deadlier enemies.
- Gratuitous Ninja: The Shorty-class enemies are pretty much ninjas without being referred by name, what with their faces being covered in masks, preference of summersaulting all over the area, and using ninja claws to rough up the heroes.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: ALL the four heroes can pull this off with their special move, by pressing the attack button when near an opponent and hitting the button again to throw mooks into each other. It's a very useful move when cornered by massive amount of foes (which WILL happen a lot).
- Guns Are Worthless: The terrorists have guns and grenades, and will use them on the heroes. But the bullets are easily avoidable and getting hit removes as much life as a stronger punch.
- High-Class Glass: Lieutenant-Colonel Whigen wears one over his left eye, which stays on even after punching him several dozen times in the face during the Final Boss battle.
- I Have Your Wife: Well, your kid sister. Part of Julia's reason of fighting the terrorists is to save her sister, Mily, abducted by Lieutenant Lou for some reason (Why? See Would Hurt a Child).
- King Mook: A bunch of the bosses acts pretty much like stronger versions of the regular mooks. For instance, the knife-wielding first mate, Riot fights exactly like the knife-wielding Sharp-type enemies (suitably enough, he's accompanied by hordes of Sharp-type mooks during his fight) while Otto is a stronger version of the baton-wielding Grid-class enemies.
- Little Miss Badass: Yan, the youngest of the four playable characters, a teenage karate expert who kicks loads of ass with a BROOM as her main weapon.
- Master Swordsman: More than one of the bosses use swords with deadly precision, expertly shredding entire chunks of life off players who let their guard down. Notably Daugh the assassin (who can only be fought by Eiji or Julia) and Whigen himself.
- My Nayme Is: Keneth Kurova's name... no, it's NOT Kenneth, there's only one N. Maybe because it's Russian.
- Neck Snap: Keneth's special move, which has him leaping on an enemy and twisting their necks with his legs, with a very audible Sickening "Crunch!" This doesn't kill the mooks outright, however, although it does remove a huge chunk of health (well, unless the mook's health bar is really low... then yes, it does kill them when that happens).
- One-Man Army: The heroes beat up an obscene amount of enemy mooks throughout the game. Of course, the henchmen following Mook Chivalry by taking turns (with the enemies in most scenes being countable on one hand) also helps.
- Psycho Knife Nut: The Sharp-class enemies are all armed with daggers, which they'll use to slash the heroes or throw from a distance. As does their boss, Riot, in a later fight when Riot leads a horde of Sharp-class mooks to battle the heroes.
- Railing Kill: Executing the Automatic Lock-On move while near a set of railings allow players to send enemies crashing instantly to the other side, throwing them either off the ship or down the ship's bowels.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Naturally, Colonel Whiggin, the leader of the terrorists, is the best fighter of the lot, having the strongest attacks and the longest lifebar as seen in the Final Boss battle. And he needs to be fought twice!
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Players can hit really, really fast once they've executed their combo moves. It's good practice when shredding entire lifebars from mooks in seconds.
- Real Men Wear Pink: One of Karts' henchman, Charl, is a hulking brute wearing a pink shirt, for reasons unknown.
- Sequential Boss: Lieutenant-Colonel Whigen, the Final Boss, needs to be fought twice. He'll attack with his sword in the first phase and lash out with lightning-speed on the heroes, and after the players bests him in a lengthy battle... he comes back after a cutscene, having twice the amount of health while ditching his sword, and while his second phase is considerably slower, his attacks does greater damage, up to including a powerful Shoryuken similar to Eiji's.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: The Janis-type enemies attack players while armed with buckler shields, providing them with slightly better defense than the other lower-ranked mooks. Doesn't help when players use grappling attacks, though.
- Shoryuken: Eiji's special move, a fierce uppercut accompanied with an orange aura around him. But it turns out the Final Boss, Whigen, have the exact same attack.
- Slide Attack: All four heroes can execute a sliding move by hitting the attack and jump buttons at the same time, knocking over any mooks in their way. For the villains, the Grid-class enemies can do this as well, as does Lieutenant Otto, the second-to-last boss.
- Story Branching: Depending on the selected characters (on two-player mode, the characters chosen will either be Eiji and Julia, or Keneth and Yan, no they cannot be shuffled) the routes and bosses will slightly differ. For instance, choosing Eiji and / or Julia will lead players to the pub area with the first boss being a sword-wielding assasin named Dough, while selecting Keneth and / or Yan will lead to the lower decks instead with the first boss being a mercenary named Gauss.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Hammer, one of the harder bosses in the game, whose attacks involve spamming the platform he's on with grenades which he is immune towards. Trying to beat him down without getting blasted by his explosives is one heck of a challenge!
- Unusable Enemy Equipment: Downplayed; players cannot use firearms, swords, crossbows, or flamethrowers from defeated enemies, and the only instance where they have access to firearms is if it's picked off from a crate. But they can use knives and batons from the Grid and Sharp-type enemies, to beat down enemies or simply flung at mooks.
- Villains Out Shopping: Right before the casino stage, comes a scene where a bunch of terrorists are enjoying themselves with the slot machines and jackpot tables… until they saw the heroes entering. Cue massive fight.
- Waif-Fu: Julia fights like this, and just her. The female Rip-class mooks and the Dark Action Girl henchwoman, Lou, fights like normal.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Julia can nail enemies with a pile-driver, she can even jump and piledrive enemies who are airborne, additionally her combos can finish with a frankensteiner or a giant swing. As the grappler of the quartet, most of her skills revolve around this trope.
- Wolfpack Boss: The second (compulsory) boss, Karts, who greets you while flanked by his two bodyguards, Charl and Ron. Being the leader, Karts naturally has a higher life bar than his underlings, but the player can fight and defeat them in any order they want (of course, it's likely that Karts will last longer than his bodyguards due to being much tougher) — as long as all three are beaten down, the players can then then move to the second level.
- Wolverine Claws: The Shorty-class enemies attack players with these type of weapons.
- The Worf Barrage: Shortly after the terrorists' takeover, a horde of helicopters carrying marines tried to intervene, only to have them being blown up by missile launchers installed by the terrorists on the ship's deck. The four heroes, having made it out of the chaos (after defeating the first boss — either Daugh for Eiji and Julia, or Gauss for Keneth and Yan), can only watch in horror, with Eiji swearing he'll "make them pay for this".
- Would Hurt a Child: The terrorists kidnap Milly, the kid sister of Julia, because it turns out the nuke they've hijacked, for some inexplicable reason, can only be triggered by injecting formula from a child's blood. Whigen's Number Two, Lieutenant Lou, is in fact about to cut up Milly for her blood sample before the heroes intervene, leading to the impending boss fight.
