Spikeout - Battle Street was playable at the Xbox booth at E3. The 3D beat-em-up is based on the linked arcade title running on Model 3 hardware. Spikeout is still in the early stages, but what was playable was good, clean arcade fun.
The E3 demo let users choose from 4 characters. The character White is a big, somewhat slow guy that does plenty of damage. The demo kicked players into survival mode where 50 bad guys had to be beat up in a certain time limit. The beach/street area had plenty of space to move around, and bad guys popped in from all around to get a piece of the main character. The several attack buttons made it easy to string combos together. A grab button let players swing their enemies in certain ways, depending on which angle the enemy was grabbed. The fighting is fast, snappy, and easy to pick up, expected from an arcade brawler.
The visuals aren't the most detailed, but the bright colors and solid 60 fps even with many enemies on screen kept the visual calibur at Sega Model 3 arcade standard.
Spikeout will be fully Xbox Live compatible, networking four players at once in a wide-open beat-em-up online. At its E3 state, there's was enough action present to be excited about. It hits Winter 2005.
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