When I first saw the key art for Midnight Fight Express, I thought that it looked pretty interesting. Once I watched the trailer, however, it was pretty clear that it is not your run-of-the-mill beat ’em-ups but rather something fantastic and a bit kooky. In Midnight Fight Express, you control a character known as Babyface, an ex-member of the criminal underworld. Babyface is living a somewhat ordinary life when one day, a drone gets into his room and tells him that he has to kill a boatload of people by sunrise or else the city is doomed. With just that, you are sent out into the night to eliminate these criminals in your best imitation of John Wick.

When I got Midnight Fight Express, it was great timing as I was still in the midst of reviewing Madden NFL 23, and it seemed to be the perfect thing to blow off some steam. The worry that I did have going in was how difficult it would be, as the last beat ’em-up I played was Sifu; that is a game that you can’t exactly relax to. While Midnight Fight Express certainly has a few enemies who are more difficult to deal with than others, it’s not defined by that.

Midnight Fight Express instead focuses on your ability to be creative with kills and gives you controls that are very easy to master. How you use these controls are what can make or break a run since, at the end of each level, you are graded on a variety of things that include the diversity of kills, time bonuses, and best combo.

The thing that truly made me love Midnight Fight Express is the number of objects that you can throw at your enemy. Everything from chairs, suitcases, boxes, and so much more is at your disposal. There were quite a few times when I had very little health and quite a few enemies, so I would constantly be spamming objects at the enemy in order to whittle them down and get some health back.

Another very cool gameplay aspect, but I rarely used it, was the rage ability that allows you to turn the heads of enemies into very soft watermelons that explode on contact. Yet, whenever I found the right moment to activate it, there was always an intense sense of satisfaction when the other enemies slightly reacted to the absolute decimation of their friend.

While I mentioned a little bit about the story at the beginning, there is one part of it that you keep coming back to that truly made the story interesting. This part is how at the beginning of every level, you are seen in a police interrogation room with two officers berating you with questions about your actions. This sets up the point where by the end of the night you are going to be locked up for the carnage that you imposed upon the criminal underworld, but it also allows you to wonder if what you did under the drone’s orders has actually saved the city or paved the way for something worse to take over.

Of course, with how the cops react to your retelling of the events of the evening, it is also possible that they may not be working for those who have the best interest of the city at heart. Nevertheless, that is something that I will leave for you to find out while chewing bubblegum all over the city, and you’re all out of bubblegum. Overall, Midnight Fight Express is definitely one of my top-ten favorite games to have come out this year. The combat is very rewarding and is just difficult enough to where you can have some true John Wick action moments while also occasionally running into enemies that will make you second guess your overall game plan.

A PC key of Midnight Fight Express was provided by Humble Games for the purposes of this review.

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Midnight Fight Express

$19.99

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Easy to learn controls
• Fascinating Story
• Both Controller and Mouse & Keyboard Options

Cons

• Some Combat Reactions aren't smooth