Two Crude Dudes review - Sega Megadrive

The pressure groups lobbied the Pentagon for years, but the pencil-neck bureaucrats still insisted on burying their toxic plutionium waste underneath the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, during the last deposition of waste, the bungling bin men accidentally blew up the highly radioactive materials. New York was almost completely annihilated, and it took around 20 years to rebuild the once-proud city.

During this time, a small frail scientist conducted a twisted experiment. He lured some of the radioactive Gary Harrod lookalikes into his blast-proof tower and transformed their already deformed bodies into terrifying fighting machines. He kitted them out with incredible weapons and dispatched them to take over the city!

The Government got wind of this cunning plot, and hired two mercenaries (that's you, if you hadn't yet seen through the painfully transparent plot) to kick their mutated butts into oblivion. This takes place over a series of horizontally scrolling backdrops, as is usually the case in arcade beat 'em ups.

Using your kick-ass skills and immeasurable strength, it's your aim to bring down the small, frail scientist and his minions before they completely take over New York!

What the Mean Machines staff thought

Two Crude Dudes has some nice features - trotting along carrying a massive car over your head ready to chuck it at a group of aggressors is great, and ripping up lamp-posts is a hoot. It also offers a decent challenge as long as you select the hardest difficulty level and use one credit per game - choose easy and use all the continues and you'll finish it in one sitting. But for all that, I didn't enjoy the game as much as I thought I would - even with two players. The graphics and sound are disappointing, the animation is poor, there's not much variety in the action and the way the Crude Dudes move and respond to the joypad doesn't feel right. At the end of the day Two Crude Dudes is just a bit too rough around the edges to appeal to anyone other than ardent beat 'em up fans.

I'm one of the biggest beat 'em up fans there is, but I couldn't help but get the feeling that there's something missing from this game. As arcade conversions go, Two Crude Dudes is great - it's an extremely close rendition of Data East's Crudebusters coin-op. There's all manner of violence-related tomfoolery here, with loads of people to beat up in a variety of hilarious ways (chucking around the various poles, traffic lights and automobiles is great laugh!). The graphic are okay, and the sound is acceptable, but Two Crude Dudes just didn't really impress me. Perhaps it's because there are too many continues. I got to the last level on my first go. Maybe it's the fact that the mutants (and that includes the bosses) seem to have little character or intelligence. I think that die-hard beat 'em up fans shall enjoy this quite a bit, while others will only be mildly impressed.

Retrospective comments

Two Crude Dudes is a silly game. The title is silly, the sprites are silly, the animation is silly. But that doesn't stop it being fun, for a short while at least. The ability to pick up pretty much anything in the game, including enemies themselves, cars and lamp posts, and use them as an offensive weapon is a cool touch. There's plenty of ways to humble the mutants. However, the game soon becomes boring. The level design is dull, and some of the enemy characters are poorly designed. The boss characters range from bland to mildly interesting, but the fact that they use cheap, often unavoidable attacks is annoying. There are loads of better fighting games on the Megadrive, and this should only be considered if you've exhausted every other option.

Have your say about this review

Dan - 19 Mar 2009, 14:15 GMT

Bang on Damo - fun but short lived, playable enough and you can do cool things, but the levels and enemies are about as memberable as.....erm....i can't remember. Big shame really coz with a bit more care and effort it could have been oh so great.

Steve - 07 Sep 2009, 07:32 GMT

This was one of those mad games: Flawed, but always put a smile on your face. Two Crude Dudes was one those games. The huge sprites, post apocalyptic setting and ability to pick up and throw nearly everything on screen also added to the this games uniqueness. Maybe not a classic, but definitely one I've never forgotten

darren walsh - 10 Oct 2010, 08:51 GMT

I think mean machines were a little harsh here.I still to this day play this game with my mates and to be honest we have never finished it due to the amount of tomfoolery that goes on during the levels.There is something extreamly satisfying about killing the enemies by throwing your partner at them.That and the constant crys of "ok that was the last time,lets play seriously now".I feel this is a really excellent coin op conversion with great graphics and sound.For two player fun i find it hard to beat and holds peoples attentions far longer than even something like toe jam and earl manages in the year 2010.

G_Model101 - 14 Oct 2010, 13:04 GMT

Re: Darren-- My thoughts exactly. Picking up your mate and throwing him never stopped being fun. I loved this game and I also loved how the wall clinging enemies appeared to crap out luminous stuff when you were below them.

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