Two Crude Dudes is a 1991 beat 'em up arcade game produced by Data East. The game was later ported to the Sega Genesis in 1992. Outside Japan, the port was released under the name Two Crude Dudes. In Japan, the game was titled: Crude Buster. In the game, players control one of two mercenaries hired by the U.S. government to stop the terrorist organization "Big Valley". Their objective is to retake control of a ruined New York City from Big Valley after a nuclear explosion the group caused.
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If you need any evidence that Aracde gaming was running out of ideas and in decline by the start of the 90s, look no further than messes like this. Uninspired, clunky, and boring to play.
Ever wanted to play a game where you make soda pop machines explode? Ever wanted to have your nipples bitten by dogs because your character is too stupid to wear an actual shirt? Then this is for you.
It's a sub-par but delightfully cheesy belt scrolling brawler otherwise. Awkward hit detection, enemies that are either stupid enough to be looped into the same pattern over and over again (the spider boss) or OP to the point of draining two lives in a row (the rocksteady ripoff in round 3). You can also pick up Not Dr Wily at the end and pretend like you're carting him back off to a better game.
It's a sub-par but delightfully cheesy belt scrolling brawler otherwise. Awkward hit detection, enemies that are either stupid enough to be looped into the same pattern over and over again (the spider boss) or OP to the point of draining two lives in a row (the rocksteady ripoff in round 3). You can also pick up Not Dr Wily at the end and pretend like you're carting him back off to a better game.
Kind of a bad game on its face, but between the goofy over-the-top setting and funky soundtrack filled with silly voice samples and orchestra hits it has plenty of charm, and its idiosyncrasies with the standards of the developing beat-em-up genre with an emphasis on thrown weapons/enemies and abusing the infinite active frames on jump attacks make it fun to 1CC. (Looking up superplay and speedrun videos to figure out boss exploit strategies certainly didn't hurt!) It doesn't get much more Data East than this.
+ fun presentation, fantastic sound design and music
+ relatively unique gameplay for the genre
+ the drink break between stages is my favorite touch
- regular enemies take too many hits and have too many invincibility frames after being hit, making most encounters drag a bit
- most boss level enemies are pretty unfair to fight unless you know how to manipulate their patterns in ways i can't imagine the developers intended
- colliding with an enemy not only damages you, but for some reason also deals 1 point of damage to the enemy, in turn giving them invincibility frames, creating some very annoying scenarios given how close the combat is and how often enemies swarm you
+ fun presentation, fantastic sound design and music
+ relatively unique gameplay for the genre
+ the drink break between stages is my favorite touch
- regular enemies take too many hits and have too many invincibility frames after being hit, making most encounters drag a bit
- most boss level enemies are pretty unfair to fight unless you know how to manipulate their patterns in ways i can't imagine the developers intended
- colliding with an enemy not only damages you, but for some reason also deals 1 point of damage to the enemy, in turn giving them invincibility frames, creating some very annoying scenarios given how close the combat is and how often enemies swarm you
Got halfway and was bored. Stopped playing.
Data East's side-scrolling throw-em-up. Nice port of the arcade hit, quite a tough little fighter. It's colourful, handles lots of big and chunky sprites, a little tongue in cheek, does the job.
While I may be proud to say that I am a bad enough dude to rescue the president, there’s not much else that I can say about Bad Dudes that would be positive overall. It is different then other beat-’em-ups, where you are on a 2D plane rather then what you would usually expect, but it is more clunky and resides on the BS part of arcade design more then anything. I wouldn’t say that it is that bad, but at the same time, it isn’t really worth playing through more then once. However, it would still end up getting a sequel despite the quality of the original, and just like any good sequel should, it doubles down on everything the original game had. Unfortunately, this means that the game would not only double down on the ridiculousness… but also on the poor design. This would result in a game with a name that is trying way too hard, Two Crude, or Two Crude Dudes.
Out of all of the games I have reviewed so far, this one probably screams “90s” more than any of the others. Everything about this game is extremely stupid and ridiculous in the best possible way, covered in that 90s cheese that so many products back from that time were known for, which makes the game much more hilarious and wonderful to experience as a result. However, at the same time, I can see that this game is not as good as the original game whatsoever, and the original wasn’t even that good to begin with. Where it progresses forward with the stupidity, it manages to regress when it comes to design, and while I still wouldn’t say it is outright terrible, it still needs a lot of tweaking to make me consider wanting to play it again.
The story is your typical “bad guys destroy place, you gotta stop them” plot, but once again, it is presented in such a dumb way that I can’t help but somewhat love it, the graphics are… alright, looking good on their own, but all of the character designs are so over the top in certain instances, that I can’t tell if they are good or bad, the music isn’t really all that special, with plenty a good number of the tracks being forgettable, but hey, it’s not as bad as if there was terrible music, the control is acceptable, with movement being very slow and jumping and combat feeling awkward, but it could be a whole lot worse then this, and the gameplay is basically the same as the previous game, but not as good.
The game is a 2D side-scrolling beat-’em-up, where you take control of one of the two crude dudes, go through several levels of similar themes, beat down a seemingly endless set of tough, expressive, and very bizarre enemies, grab a set of projectiles and weapons that you can use to your advantage to take down your opponents, and take on some of the weirdest bosses that I have seen lumped together in one of these types of games in quite a while. When it comes to the core gameplay, it is your typical beat-’em-up affair, with no real features to make it stand out from the rest, aside from possibly how you can grab background objects and use them to hurt enemies, but that is just one feature in a pool full of unoriginality. However, where the originality does shine in is, again, the ridiculousness of this game.
This game is basically the “bad enough dude” line from the original game times 10. There are so many weird, strange, and “what-the-fuck” moments to be found in this game, which can come from the character designs, especially with the main two characters looking like virgin Duke Nukem immitators, the bizarre enemies that you end up fighting throughout the game, and the voice acting, with the characters saying some of the cornniest shit, and yet saying it in the most gruff tone of voice that I can’t help but laugh. Seriously, just to get a grasp on what kind of game we are dealing with here, some of the bosses you fight end up being a giant spider-man guy, a guy that transforms into a wild beast, a terminator-type man, and a guy with a snake wrapped around his body that he can send out to kill you. If there is one thing I can praise Two Crude for, it would be how it keeps your attention in the best possible way.
Unfortunately however, the gameplay isn’t good enough to where I would recommend you trudge through it to experience that ridiculousness. Just like with the last game, this game does suffer from arcade syndrome, throwing plenty of enemies at you that can take you down really fast, and there is a boss rush near the end of the game, but this time around, there is more to it that makes this game more frustrating. The invincibility frames you get are a fucking joke, where whenever you get knocked down and get back up, you get them for like 1 second, but when you come back from dying, you get them for a good while, so yeah, not a fan of the inconsistency there. In addition, there is also the issue of the combat just feeling bad. Landing hits on enemies doesn’t feel satisfying or concise, feeling like guess work to see whether or not you actually do manage to land hits or not, and when it comes to a beat-’em-up, if you screw up that aspect alone, then what you have here is a failure of a game.
Overall, despite being an absolute joy to watch and listen to because of its absurdity, to actually play through Two Crude yourself isn’t really worth it at all, and while I still wouldn’t consider it one of the worst of this genre, it really isn’t one that you need to try for yourself. I would recommend you experience this game ONLY by watching a playthrough of it on YouTube, because that is the most enjoyment you will ever get out of it. Trust me. Also, before we end this review, can we talk about how the final boss of the game is literally just Dr. Wily? Specifically the one from Mega Man 2? I don’t know about you, but I think Capcom missed out by not suing Data East when they got the chance.
Game #328
Out of all of the games I have reviewed so far, this one probably screams “90s” more than any of the others. Everything about this game is extremely stupid and ridiculous in the best possible way, covered in that 90s cheese that so many products back from that time were known for, which makes the game much more hilarious and wonderful to experience as a result. However, at the same time, I can see that this game is not as good as the original game whatsoever, and the original wasn’t even that good to begin with. Where it progresses forward with the stupidity, it manages to regress when it comes to design, and while I still wouldn’t say it is outright terrible, it still needs a lot of tweaking to make me consider wanting to play it again.
The story is your typical “bad guys destroy place, you gotta stop them” plot, but once again, it is presented in such a dumb way that I can’t help but somewhat love it, the graphics are… alright, looking good on their own, but all of the character designs are so over the top in certain instances, that I can’t tell if they are good or bad, the music isn’t really all that special, with plenty a good number of the tracks being forgettable, but hey, it’s not as bad as if there was terrible music, the control is acceptable, with movement being very slow and jumping and combat feeling awkward, but it could be a whole lot worse then this, and the gameplay is basically the same as the previous game, but not as good.
The game is a 2D side-scrolling beat-’em-up, where you take control of one of the two crude dudes, go through several levels of similar themes, beat down a seemingly endless set of tough, expressive, and very bizarre enemies, grab a set of projectiles and weapons that you can use to your advantage to take down your opponents, and take on some of the weirdest bosses that I have seen lumped together in one of these types of games in quite a while. When it comes to the core gameplay, it is your typical beat-’em-up affair, with no real features to make it stand out from the rest, aside from possibly how you can grab background objects and use them to hurt enemies, but that is just one feature in a pool full of unoriginality. However, where the originality does shine in is, again, the ridiculousness of this game.
This game is basically the “bad enough dude” line from the original game times 10. There are so many weird, strange, and “what-the-fuck” moments to be found in this game, which can come from the character designs, especially with the main two characters looking like virgin Duke Nukem immitators, the bizarre enemies that you end up fighting throughout the game, and the voice acting, with the characters saying some of the cornniest shit, and yet saying it in the most gruff tone of voice that I can’t help but laugh. Seriously, just to get a grasp on what kind of game we are dealing with here, some of the bosses you fight end up being a giant spider-man guy, a guy that transforms into a wild beast, a terminator-type man, and a guy with a snake wrapped around his body that he can send out to kill you. If there is one thing I can praise Two Crude for, it would be how it keeps your attention in the best possible way.
Unfortunately however, the gameplay isn’t good enough to where I would recommend you trudge through it to experience that ridiculousness. Just like with the last game, this game does suffer from arcade syndrome, throwing plenty of enemies at you that can take you down really fast, and there is a boss rush near the end of the game, but this time around, there is more to it that makes this game more frustrating. The invincibility frames you get are a fucking joke, where whenever you get knocked down and get back up, you get them for like 1 second, but when you come back from dying, you get them for a good while, so yeah, not a fan of the inconsistency there. In addition, there is also the issue of the combat just feeling bad. Landing hits on enemies doesn’t feel satisfying or concise, feeling like guess work to see whether or not you actually do manage to land hits or not, and when it comes to a beat-’em-up, if you screw up that aspect alone, then what you have here is a failure of a game.
Overall, despite being an absolute joy to watch and listen to because of its absurdity, to actually play through Two Crude yourself isn’t really worth it at all, and while I still wouldn’t consider it one of the worst of this genre, it really isn’t one that you need to try for yourself. I would recommend you experience this game ONLY by watching a playthrough of it on YouTube, because that is the most enjoyment you will ever get out of it. Trust me. Also, before we end this review, can we talk about how the final boss of the game is literally just Dr. Wily? Specifically the one from Mega Man 2? I don’t know about you, but I think Capcom missed out by not suing Data East when they got the chance.
Game #328