 That's drunk. While back I took a look at a Nintendo 64 game called Forsaken 64. Now just from the name, maybe only a few of you remember that game, but this cover? I got tons of comments saying that, yep, I remember that, I always wondered what that game actually was. There's lots of other similar examples out there. One in particular, is for the game Brutal Pause of Fury. This game was released for Sega CD, Amiga, Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Looking at the game footage here, you may be thinking, huh, this doesn't look very familiar. Well, does this magazine ad look familiar? I'm willing to bet it does, because publisher Game Tech absolutely blitzed gaming magazines and comic books with this ad for months and months. And hey, to the ad's credit, it makes the game look like it'd be pretty cool. But as you can see going back to the footage here, there is a slight disconnect between the artwork on the ad and the box art, and the game itself. It kinda reminds me of when Atari 2600 game cartridges needed all this lush artwork to help fill in the blanks of your imagination, because when you played the game itself, eh, it usually didn't match up to say the least. Alright, so it's clear that the graphics and art style of the game itself don't quite match up to how cool the ad looked, so how does it play? Eh, not well. In fact, it's pretty remarkable how a simple one-on-one fighting game can get this screwed up. We'll start with the characters and the art style, and yeah, I know I'm harping on this a little too much, but I mean, come on, who is this? Chester Cheetah? Okay, well, his name is Tai Cheetah, so you gotta give points for the terrible dad pun there. We also have a Tai boxing rat, a coyote that knows Taekwondo, a buffed-out bear, a clearance bin version of Bugs Bunny, and of course, the token female character, and of course, it's a fox. Maybe it's just me, but something about these characters and just the overall look of the game really just seems off. Now, this game was developed by Eurocom, a British developer, so the usual Japanese art style isn't here, but I mean, Eurocom had a hand in developing some great-looking games on Super Nintendo, like Maui Mallard and Cold Shadow, but the colors here just seem so basic, like it's a Westwood console game, like Young Merlin or something. I mean, compared to other fighting games at the time, you had such interesting character artwork with great settings and backgrounds, everything from the usual stuff like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, but also games like Primal Rage, Power Rangers Fighting Edition, and Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters. The characters and settings in Brutal Pause of Fury by comparison are just plain and kinda generic. There really isn't anything here visually that draws me in. Then you get to the fighting, and this is where the game is completely backwards. Whoever you pick, your character does not start with any special moves. You have to earn them by beating opponents. Okay, that's kinda neat, but the problem with this is that every opponent you face has all of their special moves. I mean, think of playing Street Fighter II with just punches and kicks, trying to beat M. Bison. That's how hard the first fight is in Brutal Pause of Fury. And while you're getting the crap kicked out of you, you'll also notice how bad the hit detection is. Sometimes I'll somehow hit my opponent from half the screen away, then I'll somehow miss, even when I'm standing right next to him or her. There are many, many moments during fights that just do not make sense, and it's ridiculously frustrating. Even worse is that once you do learn a special move, it is not easy to pull off. It's one of those things where you're not just fighting your opponent, you're fighting the game and your controller to try and pull this crap off. Granted, some of the special moves are awesome once you see them, like the lion's guitar attack, but I sure as heck can't pull it off myself, at least not consistently. I should mention that this game does have a password system that allows you to play this game with the character's special moves already unlocked, but unfortunately, the passwords look like this. I wish I had better things to say about this game. It seems like a good idea on paper, and hey, there's some good stuff here and there, like being able to watch a replay after each fight, and I love the detailed stats after each fight. That's always a nice touch, but unfortunately, brutal pause of fury is just boring, no matter how you slice it. If you go it alone against the computer in story mode, the difficulty is just so absurd that you're likely to just say screw this and play a better fighting game. If you play against a second player, you'll likely find the special moves so absurdly convoluted and difficult to pull off that you're left with just punches and kicks, which gets boring real quick. So again, it's like, screw that, let's play Killer Instinct, or Turtles Tournament Fighters, or hell, even clay fighter games are more fun than this. Brutal pause of fury is brutal, alright, brutally boring and brutally difficult. Avoid this game. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.