Video Game / Raging Justice

Rick, Nikki and Ash, taking out the trash.

Nikki: Where are we?
Rick: The wrong part of town.

Raging Justice is a 2018 Beat 'em Up action game developed by MakinGames and published by Team17 for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, and a loving Retraux to old-school arcade-style action games.

In a crime-infested city filled with thugs, murderers and assorted filth, three police officers - police veteran Rick, tough-as-nails ex-military enforcer Nikki and overzealous rookie Ash - are investigating the abduction of the city's mayor, Wilson, when an ambush forces them to bail their vehicle, right into gangster territory. Surrounded by scores and scores of mooks, they will have to pummel their way out.

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You want to do this? Let's do this!

• Acrofatic:
  • The Dual Boss bouncers from Makin's, Charlton and Dwayne, are both overweight, obese giants with bulging pot bellies, but that doesn't stop them from moving all over the place while smashing you up. Later on their animations are recycled into fat mooks who can move with similar speed.
  • The Final Boss, Mayor Wilson, is a mountain of fat quite fast on his stumpy legs despite his size.
• Alliterative Name: The game loves giving their mooks names like these. Kevin Kutter, Gravel Goatley, Steely Senior, Hammer Hicks, Charlie Chin Cracker, Ruthless Ruth...
• Angry Guard Dog: Vicious rottweilers are an occasional enemy showing up to chew your health away, though they can be taken out in just a couple of hits.
• Bad Guy Bar: The second stage in Makin's, a bar belonging to the gangsters literally crowded with partying mooks that forces you into a circle the moment you enter. Cue an intense Bar Brawl with you beating the snot out of everyone inside, ending with you facing the Dual Boss bouncers, Charlton and Dwayne.
• Batter Up!: Another variety of melee weapon, and smashing enough heads via swinging bats will have the game announcing, "Home run!"
• Battle in the Rain: The very first stage has you fighting scores and scores of thugs in rain-drenched streets.
• Boss Tease: Mr. P, The Dragon to Mayor Wilson, the game's actual Big Bad appears in the opening news montage, introduced as the crime lord of the city. You fight him one-third into the game after defeating several other bosses.
• Car Fu: You can occasionally find parked ATVs, hop aboard, and ram your new ride into hordes of mooks, crushing them by the dozens. The ATV blows up after receiving enough damage or overheating though, and you're back to punching and kicking.
• Chainsaw Good: The Final Boss, Mayor Wilson, attacks you with a massive chainsaw after you defeated all (thirty-odd) of his guards. And no, you (sadly) can't grab the chainsaw and slice him up. Somehow.
• Circling Birdies: Mooks who receive enough hits will have stars circling over their heads as they remain stunned for a handful of seconds - allowing you to perform arrests and take them down in an instant.
• Conjoined Twins: Dorgo, the Circus Freak boss, has his brother growing from behind his head.
  Dorgo: "I'm the brains, he's the brawn!"
• Corrupt Politician: The game's premise is that a trio of elite police officers, consisting of Nikki, Rick and Ash, are investigating the abduction of Mayor Wilson by the local gangs. But after a lengthy investigation (read: beating up half the gangsters in the city), they eventually meet Mayor Wilson and realize he actually faked his abduction, and is the leader behind the criminal activity all along, with the gangs entirely under his control.
• Cutscene Incompetence: At the end of the wharf stage, you're automatically knocked off your feet by a dropping door and rendered disorientated, and Eddie, the boss from one level ago, will suddenly reappear and abduct you (via an Over-the-Shoulder Carry). You can't escape at any point because the game needs to have you delivered to the circus stage.
• Deadly Dodging: You can invoke this in the Final Boss fight. While fending off hordes and hordes of mooks in the foreground, from the back Mayor Wilson, the stage's boss will take potshots with his shotgun. Every now and then, you can dodge his shells and trick him into blasting his own minions instead.
• Degraded Boss:
  • The first two bosses - Tiny from the first, Charlton and Dwayne the Dual Boss from the second - appears later on as regular enemies.
  • Eddie, the boss of the junkyard stage. He's a difficult boss on his own, but after he drags you to the circus he appears as a regular enemy in the first area, and is nowhere as difficult as his initial encounter.
• Die, Chair, Die!: Not just chairs, but also tables, phone booths, fire hydrants, trash cans, fountains, windows, any objects that can be interacted with can also be smashed for points.
• Down in the Dumps: One stage is set in the city dumps filled with dismantled vehicles, barrels, skip bins and assorted junk, as well as a mechanical claw controlled by mooks trying to drop I-beams on you from above. You do manage to find a still-functioning ATV for running over mooks, however.
• Fair Cop: Nikki, the sole female playable character, who looks real easy on the eyes.
• Flunky Boss: Eddie, Mr. P, and Mayor Wilson all start off with mooks flanking them. Mr. P can even summon mooks from buildings in the background when you beat him down in both his fights.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: You can collect bottles for smashing heads, mostly in Makin's (the Bad Guy Bar) as well as in alleyways.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: In a manner reminiscient of 80s and 90s-made arcade beat 'em up games, you regain health by grabbing and consuming food, including chicken, cakes, fruit baskets, and the like.
• Ironic Nickname: Probably the oldest one in the book - the first boss is named "Tiny", and he's far from being tiny. He's in fact your largest opponent in the first stage.
• Mook Chivalry: Played straight in two occasions, the second stage in Makin's and the final stage's main hall as you confront Mayor Wilson. Both instances have you surrounded by more than twenty onscreen enemies, but they will somehow attack three to five at a time rather than swarming over you all at once. They even wait until the previous bunch of mooks are defeated until the next batch follows.
• Never Bareheaded:
  • All three of the playable characters, basically. Rick never drops his Cool Shades despite the amount of ass-kicking he dishes out (or getting pummeled by mooks and bosses). Same goes for Nikki and her hat and Ash for his headphones.
  • Mr. P, The Dragon, never loses his pimp hat either, despite spending his boss fights (both of them!) spinning like crazy all over the place. Or when you finally uppercut him off his feet to the ground.
  • Ditto to Eddie, the boss of the dumps stage.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: You can pull this off on mooks after knocking them to the floor, sitting on them while repeatedly pummeling their health away. This works even on bosses.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: The "arrest" move allows you to take down thugs after dealing enough damage to their health by handcuffing them. Arresting enemies (instead of killing them) would even net a higher score, with bonus points for making enough arrests within a certain area.
• Obviously Evil: While Mayor Wilson, which you're assigned to rescue after his supposed abduction early on, remains unseen for most of the game, when you eventually do catch a glimpse of the guy in the final area... is it really a wonder to anyone he's a Corrupt Politician pulling the strings behind all the gang activity? Being a heavily-tattooed, scar-faced, oversized brute whose appearance screams "Fat Bastard!" from a mile away, it really questions why the game even bother to treat the twist as the end as a surprise...
• Pimp Duds: Mr. P's standard attire, his flamboyant purple pimp outfit, complete with pimp hat, a golden dollar-sign necklace, and a pimp cane that allows him to pull off some impressive Cane Fu.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Ash, the youngest of the three playable heroes, who's just a mere rookie (and whose bio card states him to be a teenager!) can kick some impressive amount of ass despite his size. He stood barely to the waist of most larger mook enemies, for starters.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: The bosses of the game loves doing these. Right off the bat, here's the first boss, Tiny:
  The Player Hero: Best if you step aside.
  Tiny: How 'bout if I step on your head, after I break your arms and legs and most of your ribs?
• Recurring Boss: Mr. P needs to be fought twice, in the third stage and later outside the mansion. Both fights play out identically with only differences being the setting.
• Rooftop Confrontation: The final phase of the battle against Mayor Wilson is on his mansion's helipad, and he comes with a helicopter.
  Mayor Wilson: Now I've got a helicopter, how's that for a perk of the job? DIE, YOU FOOLS!
• Roundhouse Kick: An available move for all three playable heroes, capable of knocking enemies to the ground.
• Sequential Boss: Mayor Wilson, the Final Boss, as appropriately difficult as you expect a final enemy to be. You'll need to fight his way past his scores of bodyguards while avoiding his shotgun blasts, and then fight him from up close as he ditches his shotgun in favor of a chainsaw. Defeat him and he runs off to his mansion's helipad, and you must defeat his helicopter before finally taking him down.
• Shockwave Stomp: Eddie, the boss of the junkyard, can leap and pummel the ground resulting in a circular wave that you need to jump over or take damage. Thankfully he only does this in his first fight, when you face him as a Degraded Boss in the circus he lose this attack for reasons unexplained.
• Static Stun Gun: The preferred weapon of henchwomen enemies for electrocuting you from up close.
• Suplex Finisher: The two male player characters, Ash and Rick, can perform this move by grappling mooks from up close and flipping them above their heads for additional damage.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Mr. P's special move is a Spin Attack that allows him to circle all over the area and deal damage if he gets in your way. But this only results in making him dizzy after a few seconds, and in his disorientated state you can move right up and smack him repeatedly. The moment Mr. P regains momentum, instead of trying a different move he'll get back to spinning (a predictable and easy-to-avoid attack once you get used to patterns) despite the fact that it doesn't work, pretty much ensuring he's exposed to getting a kick in his face; rinse and repeat until he's defeated. What's even better is that Mr. P does this in both his boss fights.
• Throw a Barrel at It:
  • Right off the intro cutscene, the police vehicle with Rick, Nikki and Ash aboard crashes thanks to Tiny, the lead gangster of the area, dropping an oil keg on them atop an overhead bridge.
  • There are multiple areas containing drums and wooden barrels, which mooks can hurl from a distance. These projectiles can be jumped over or smashed before they damage you.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Enemies in white lab coats specializes in throwing exploding projectiles that hurts you if you don't jump over in time.
• Tiny-Headed Behemoth:
  • Dorgo the Circus Freak boss is multiple times larger than an average person, and both his heads (combined) are smaller than his fists.
  • Mayor Wilson, thanks to his freakishly obscene amount of body fat while his head retains the same size.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Both Dorgo and Mayor Wilson, who are tiny-headed behemoths, have hilariously short and stumpy legs that can somehow support their weight.
• Wrench Whack: Heavy wrenches can be used as weapons for clobbering mooks, too. They're nowhere as fast or useful as bats, though.
• X-Ray Sparks: Both your player characters and enemies will flash into realistic-looking glowing blue skeletons when hit by stun guns or other electrical hazards.

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