Bad Street Brawler (NES)

Bad Street Brawler

Platform: NES Year: 1989 Developer: Beam Software Buy: Amazon

Bad Street Brawler is a beat-em-up game developed by Beam Software and published by Mattel Electronics. The game was announced by Mindscape at the Winter CES, but it was scrapped in favor of Paperboy, and Mattel bought the rights to let the development team add support for the Power Glove. It is actually a port of a Commodore 64 game released by Beam Software called Bop 'n Rumble (C64).

In the game, you play as Duke Dunnegan (or Duke Davis in the manual), who bears an uncanny resemblance to a later video game protagonist, Duke Nukem. Duke is a vigilante who fights rampant crime in his city. The game describes him as a former punk rocker and "the world's coolest martial arts vigilante". The game has fifteen stages in all. Before each stage, you are given a quote, as well as the ability to practice the moves the game gives you for that particular stage. In each stage, you must dispatch a certain number of enemies to proceed to the next level. You will fight enemies such as the Boxers, Punks, and even Gorillas. Some of these enemies also have projectile attacks. Every third level has a boss that must be defeated in order to proceed.

The game was negatively received by players and critics alike, due to the poor controls and repetitive gameplay. The combo moves are also notorious for not always working.

Screenshots

The title screen. The first stage. Playing stage five. Fighting the second boss. Perhaps Duke's not so bad after all? One of the cutscenes.

Music

There are only 5 songs in the game. While they are catchy tunes, they can get annoying after playing the game for a long period of time. Neil Brennan, who worked at Beam Software as a main programmer, originally composed the Title tune and arranged the death tune, but Gavan Anderson and Tania Smith rewrote the NES version and added their own songs. Even the Carmen Overture makes an appearance in the soundtrack. While the game does not have credits, Anderson confirmed who did the music. The song titles contain the name of the source files. The music was written in Music Macro Language using Gregg Barnett's sound driver.

The source code gives the real names of three of the songs, along with their composer.

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Arranger	Length	Listen	Download
01	Street Stuff (Title)	Neil Brennan	Gavan Anderson, Tania Smith	1:52		Download
02	Street Jive	Gavan Anderson	Gavan Anderson, Tania Smith	1:52		Download
03	Boss	Gavan Anderson, Tania Smith	Gavan Anderson, Tania Smith	1:01		Download
04	Bull Fighter (Cutscene)	Georges Bizet	Gavan Anderson, Tania Smith	1:01		Download
05	Death	Traditional	Gavan Anderson, Tania Smith	0:02		Download

Credits

• Ripper:
• Recorder: Doommaster1994
• Game Credits:
  • Not Credited Composer: Gavan Anderson
  • Not Credited Composer: Neil Brennan
  • Not Credited Composer: Tania Smith
  • Not Credited Composer: Traditional
  • Not Credited Arranger: Gavan Anderson
  • Not Credited Arranger: Tania Smith
  • Not Credited Programmer: Gregg Barnett credited as Greg Barnett

(Verified by Anderson; game lacks credits)

The game does not have credits. We have received verification from Gavan Anderson that he and Tania Smith worked on the NES arrangements. The source code file STREET.DOC attributes Street Stuff to "N.M.B.", while Street Jive is credited to "G.J.A."

Game Rip

Format	Download
	Download (Info)

Ripping NES music is a very arduous process that is beyond the scope of this site.

Releases

USA Title: Bad Street Brawler Platform: NES Released: 1989-09-?? Publisher: Mattel Electronics     USA Title: Bad Street Brawler Platform: NES Released: Unreleased Publisher: Mindscape

Links

• mobygames.com/game/291/bad-street-brawler/ - MobyGames.
• gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/587105-bad-street-brawler - GameFAQs.