Video Game / Slaps and Beans

Bud and Terence are about to punch you.

Slaps & Beans is a 2017 retro-style Beat 'em Up action game made by Trinity Team, paying homage to the various onscreen collaborations of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.

Set in The '70s, it features both actors. After filming had wrapped on their latest movie, "Slaps & Beans", Bud and Terence are suddenly assaulted by a bunch of thugs who infiltrated the studios, kidnaps Terence's on-off girlfriend Sophia, and attempts abducting the two actors. After beating off their attackers, Bud and Terence discover a bigger conspiracy at large, one involving the mysterious "Mr. Tango".

A sequel, Slaps and Beans 2, has been funded through Kickstarter. It was finally released on all major systems in 2023. This time the stakes are even higher, since the Big Bad is the megalomaniac, Blofeld-esque General Cobram who wants to enslave the world thanks to his discovery of alien technologies.

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Watch Out, we're... Slaps and Beans!

• Actor Allusion:
  • There's a diner called "Djumbo" in the first stage, where Bud and Terence get their meal. Said diner is an obvious nod to the popular Django series of films, at least one which stars Terence Hill as Django.
  • The supermarket smackdown level is lifted directly from the earlier Bud and Terence film, Go For It, right up to using the soundtrack itself.
  • In the city stage, just before the supermarket section mentioned above, a blond priest on a bicycle can be seen crossing the road: he's Don Matteo, the main character of an Italian TV crime series played by... Terence Hill.
• Acrofatic: Bud Spencer in video game form is as acrofatic as the real-life Bud. Also the clown Mini-Boss who can move surprisingly fast despite his size.
• Badass Normal: Bud and Terence are this by default, since they are being themselves knocking out hundreds of mooks, and not just actors playing a part (besides the first stage, that is).
• Bar Brawl: The first stage in the Western town have Bud and Spencer entering a pub occupied by enemy mooks. Awesomeness ensues.
• Big Eater: Bud, as per the norm. Terence himself isn't too shabby, if the mini-stage with the two having a hot-dog eating competition is any indication (most players, in control of either Terence or Bud, should be able to gulp down 40 dogs before the time limit, though when playing against the CPU one can easily get over 50 dogs eaten).
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: A Quick Time Event in the game has players (in control of either Bud or Terence) beating mooks to drawing pistols, where if the player wins they would blast their opponents' guns from their grasp, and sometimes their feet (leading to mooks doing a comical Hurt Foot Hop) or their pants dropping altogether (cue Comedic Underwear Exposure).
• Booze-Based Buff: Very, very frequently, enemies will drop mugs of beer after they're defeated (without spilling, somehow). Grabbing and chugging beer will restore Bud and Terence's health and even allow them to One-Hit KO lower-level mooks.
• Combat Cue Stick: There are at least two scenes where Bud and Terrence get into fights near pool tables (one at the first stage, and one near the end). They can grab nearby cue sticks as clubs during fights.
• Depraved Dwarf: The boss of the amusement park stage firstly appears to tower over both Bud and Terence, until he's taken down by having his stilts destroyed. Then it's revealed that he's a midget henchman working for Mr. Tango.
• Destination Defenestration: During the offscreen fight events where Bud and Terence fight off a horde of mooks while indoors (with the fight itself not shown onscreen). Some Button Mashing is required, and if you pass, the subsequent cutscene will have mooks getting flung out of each and every available window.
• Elevator Action Sequence: As a game inspired by 90s arcade brawlers, Slaps and Beans just had to have one. It happens near the end of the laboratory level.
• Fake-Out Opening: The entire first stage is seemingly set in the 1800s during the Wild West, which makes sense since the real-life Bud and Terence made plenty of Westerns during their careers. But after beating up some mooks in the desert, a bar, and atop an old-timey locomotive, the stage then concludes with the director yelling, "CUT!"... revealing the first level to be a movie set. The rest of the game is set in the 1970s.
• Fat and Skinny: Bud and Spencer, the two playable characters, based on the two actors of the same name.
• Fighting Clown: A literal example, one of the Mini-Boss from the racetrack stage is a fat clown who can surprisingly take a lot of punishment before he's defeated.
• Frying Pan of Doom: Frying pans are a weapon available in the first few stages for smashing faces. Right in the intro, Bud and Terence are making their dinner of baked beans before mooks interrupt them, at which point the player is allowed to grab the still-hot pan previously used for cooking beans to break skulls.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: As Bud, after knocking down a mook, players can grab said mook before he regains consciousness by the belt and use him as an impromptu club on other enemies. It only works if the mook you're grabbing still has some health left though, if he's knocked out he then fades away.
• Hurt Foot Hop: Besides the above-mentioned Blasting It Out of Their Hands scene, there's a special move Bud and Terence can execute, which let them stomp on the foot of mooks during fights. Leading to mooks jumping on the spot while holding one foot.
• Ink-Suit Actor: A video game example, the playable characters, Bud and Terence, are directly modelled on the actors (specifically, their likeness from Watch Out, We're Mad!).
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After the first stage, as Bud and Terence make their way backstage to take a break, Bud complains that their new movie, "Slaps and Beans" sounds more like a "video game".
• Mini-Mecha: The game's Final Boss, Mr. Tango, attacks Bud and Terence in a robot armed with turrets... which shoots cans of beans. Which a nearby henchman calls the "Bean-a-tor Robot".
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer for the game has a pixelized rendition of the "Firemen's choir" scene from Watch Out, We're Mad, which never appears in the game proper. It actually was cut for time constraints, then made its way as an actual playable mini-game in Slaps and Beans 2.
• Produce Pelting: The level in a supermarket have Bud and Terence fighting mooks in the fruit aisle, where they decide not to get their hands dirty for once and start throwing apples, cabbages and pumpkins from a nearby rack on enemies. It also happens in the level set on a tropical island.
• Put Their Heads Together: Bud has a special move he can execute if he's standing close to two mooks at once. By pressing grab, he'll snatch the two nearest enemies by the shoulders and smash their faces together.
• Racing Minigame: Bud and Terence find out the mysterious Mr. Tango will be making an appearance in a race rally to congratulate the winner. In order to track down Mr. Tango, Bud and Terence end up posing as racecar drivers (by pulling a Mugged for Disguise on a pair of actual drivers) and entering the race, which they must win to proceed.
• Respawning Enemies: At the end of the supermarket level, as the stage goes on to a warehouse, the boss of said stage then hollers his mooks, "What am I paying you for? Get them!" before throwing his money into the area. Extra mooks will literally respawn from the cash — as Bud and Terence you'll need to fight until the boss runs out of cash to throw.
• I Shall Taunt You: The dwarf boss, given his advantage of being on stilts where Bud and Terence couldn't reach him, will spend much of the boss fight laughing at Bud and Terence while the players try finding a way to take him down.
• Shout-Out:
  • To The Terminator, of all things, despite the setting being at least a decade before the Terminator franchise. Bud and Terence infiltrate a cruiser and steal the clothes of the captain and first mate while quoting the second movie.
  Bud: We need your boots, pants, and motorcycle.
  Captain: But we don't have a motorcycle!
  Terence: Then we'll take this ship!
  [cue the Captain and his mate getting flung out of a cabin's windows in their underwear. Followed by Bud and Terence walking out in stolen clothes.]
  • One graffito in the Miami stage reads "H7-25", which was the name of the alien kid in the film The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid, starring Bud Spencer as the Sheriff. It's also the name of the mini-mecha final boss.
  • The film studio level has a poster for Mr. Bean on its walls. That show didn't exist in the 70s yet, but the whole game constantly mentions beans, so it doesn't feel out of place...
  • The achievements' names reference several of the duo's movies ("Super Snooper", "Banana Joe", etc.) as well as other famous properties ("Back To Fagioli", "Metal Beans Solid", etc.)
  • Back to the Future is also referenced with the father of the girl Terence and Bud are going to rescue: a scientist who looks like Dr. Emmett Brown and even says "Great Scott!" at one point.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The game is really, really fond of using the jazziest, most catchy and ear-worm inducing soundtracks for Background Music just as Bud and Terence are beating the snot out of enemies. Just imagine Whistles and Bells as background score for a fight scene (which this game uses in at least four levels).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Bud and Terence is introduced making their dinner in the outdoors (cooking beans on a pan over a campfire) before they're interrupted by a bunch of thugs, one which kicks over the pan. Cue an ass-kicking, but when all the thugs are defeated Bud then grumbles how he lost his meal until Terence points out there's a pub in the next city they can eat in.
• Trademark Favourite Food: Beans for Bud, which is where the game got its namesake.
• Traintop Battle: The first Western stage have Bud and Terence bringing their fight from the pub to the top of a locomotive, with them beating up enemies while avoiding railings by jumping.
• Unique Enemy: Due to the location, the racetrack stage is the only stage to contain mooks in race jumpsuits, and even then there's only a tiny handful of them. Bud and Terence automatically defeats the first few in a cutscene, and when the player regains control of Bud and Terence there's only two jumpsuit mooks left. There are also a single giant hillbilly in the Western stage and the fat Fighting Clown mentioned above.

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