Fighting Force (1997). Play Free Online

Summary

Fighting Force drops you into a cramped but lively 3‑D beat‑em‑up where you pick one of four very different heroes – the power‑house “Smasher”, the all‑rounder Hawk and Mace, and the speedy teen Alana. Each fighter has a signature special that costs a slice of health, and the roster feels like a love‑letter to early ’90s arcade brawlers.

The stages swing from downtown streets to neon‑lit sci‑fi complexes, littered with objects you can swing: bottles, soda cans, even car engines. A simple branch‑system lets you hop between areas, so you might end up battling in a mall one round and a subway the next, keeping the action fresh.

Core Design cranked it out right after Tomb Raider’s breakout, initially pitching it as a fourth entry in Streets of Rage before going solo. Marc Silvestri handled the character art, and an experimental Battle Arena mode was scrapped before launch. Critics were split – praised for its nostalgic flair, solid graphics and surprisingly tight controls, yet faulted for lacking true innovation – but the game still moved over 1 million copies worldwide, with nearly 600 k sold in the U.S., cementing its place as a cult favorite.

Storyline

In Fighting Force, four distinct operatives each have personal motives for confronting the mad scientist Dr. Dex Zeng. Zeng, a criminal mastermind, once predicted the world would end in the year 2000. When New Year’s Eve 1999 passed without the foretold apocalypse, he concluded a glitch had occurred and resolved to trigger the disaster himself.

The game opens with a police cordon sealing off Zeng’s office skyscraper, forcing the team to breach the high‑rise. From there the action spills into a chaotic shopping mall, a claustrophobic subway, and a heavily defended Coast Guard base.

The final showdown takes place atop Zeng’s island headquarters, where the heroes must stop his world‑ending plan once and for all.

Edited by Maya Carter