Is it strange that I miss the arcade era? While I had to pay for every 90 seconds of game time, needed to wait in line to play the next-gen hotness, and always ended up with hands that smelled like the inside of a tire, the adrenaline rush of walking into an unexplored arcade and not knowing what wonders awaited me made it all worth it. I would often find myself drawn towards the fist-swinging luster of the beat-em-up, a genre of arcade that satisfied my lifelong urge to pummel neon-haired punks until they faded away into oblivion. Capcom’s Wii-exclusive Spyborgs not only draws inspiration from many of these legendary brawlers, but also tries to make this neglected genre relevant again. And no, the title isn’t referring to a group of undercover cybernetic pigs. Drats.

Spyborgs might as well begin with an “insert coin” prompt, as that is the exact experience that you are getting when you fire it up. After a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it opening cinematic that introduces the Spyborgs—an elite team of mechanically-enhanced soldiers--the player is asked to choose two of the three available characters. The roster is made up of the sword-wielding female ninja Clandestine, a hardened grunt named Stinger that has a mammoth firearm attached to his wrist, and a mechanical brute called Bouncer. Each character has their own array of weapons, combos and special moves, with Clandestine’s speed, Stinger’s powerful weapons, and Bouncer’s unrelenting force being their most distinguishing features. You are allowed to switch between your two chosen characters at any time during gameplay, with the game’s artificial intelligence or a second player taking control of the other Spyborg.

The game’s combat is very smooth and consistently engaging, as Bouncer’s lumbering yet powerful melee attacks can be complimented by switching to Stinger and sending a few fire blasts at this juggled opponent or to Clandestine for lightning-fast slicing and dicing. These maneuvers can be made more powerful through the game’s upgrade system, which allows you to use points earned during levels to increase a character’s strength, health and move set, though doing so doesn’t unlock any new combos or weapons. Each character also has a few special attacks, which are motion-activated and will instantly vanquish the unlucky adversary. The player will have to settle into these moves quickly, as they will need all the help that they can get against the plethora of robotic monstrosities found in each of the game’s 35 levels. All of these deviants—from miniscule, monkey-esque buggers to hulking, tank-like scorpion-bots—always attack in large numbers, ensuring that your characters fists and firearms will be in constant use.

Games within the beat-em-up genre have always been fairly mindless, and Spyborgs’ ‘smash everything that appears on-screen’ approach can definitely feel that way at times. You die very quickly on the default difficulty setting, with a few fleeting shots from the whip-arm of a single robot demolishing ¼ of a character’s health bar. The game requires that you study the patterns of each enemy to figure out the best moment to strike or block. Of course, this can be very difficult to do when the screen is jammed with multi-colored robots, making it difficult to see what is going on. This leads to sudden, unexpected deaths, which also brings about eye-gouging frustration once you realize that the level must be restarted from the beginning once both of your characters have fallen. This dense, discouraging design decision leaves the player in a desperate struggle whenever one Spyborg is down, as the remaining soldier faces the near impossible task of clearing the screen without aid in order to bring their buddy back to the land of the living. Thankfully, the difficulty can be changed at any time from the options menu.

More aggravation erupts from the realization that beating up cybernetic fools is all you will ever do. Throughout the entirety of this five hour bash-fest, there is never a break from the relentless junking of evil robots, as the game doesn’t provide any substantial new abilities, weapons or bonus modes to freshen up the gameplay. Instead, you are merely asked to trudge onward from location to location, beating up marginally different versions of the enemies you’ve faced before with little to no evolution from start to finish. This is a true shame, as the combat of Spyborgs is very enjoyable at its core. Each of the three characters feels significantly different from one another and switching between them on the fly is a blast, but the player’s interest level will quickly fade away as the monotony begins to kick in. Once that happens, the only real impetus to keep going is to see the game’s fairly grandiose boss fights, but they just left me depressed that the rest of the game wasn’t as ambitious as these brief encounters. It also doesn’t help that Spyborgs is absurdly short, with each of the game’s 35 levels taking between five and ten minutes to clear.

In the end, Spyborgs’ enjoyable combat, massive boss battles and two-player local coop provide a few solid hours of entertainment, but the game’s reluctance to offer anything but walking, fisticuffs and frustration will leave all but the most dedicated arcade enthusiasts bored. Rent it if you are curious, but there just isn’t enough substance here to justify a purchase.

Gameplay: 6
Spyborgs rips the best brawling aspects from mid-90’s arcade beat-em-ups like Final Fight and Captain Commando and tries to rejuvenate them with an upgrade system, tougher battles, and some body-bruisin’ combos. What it doesn’t improve, however, is the monotony.

Graphics: 7 
The characters and environments of Spyborgs are all nicely detailed and varied, with demolished buildings and walkways making up most of the environments. Some flashy explosive effects and monstrous boss encounters offer delicious eye candy.

Sound: 6
The audio of Spyborgs is mostly average, with some generically awful electro-rock blaring during the battles and surprisingly decent voice acting popping up in the game’s completely nonsensical cutscenes.

Difficulty: Medium
At its normal difficulty, Spyborgs will require the player to learn all of the moves and block often, lest ye be replaying missions repeatedly. The game offers five difficulty options overall, ensuring that any gamer should be able to find one that suits them.

Concept: 6
The idea behind Spyborgs is fairly low key, with arcade ideals of old being fused with some great combat and a somewhat pointless upgrade system. Unfortunately, each mission plays exactly the same as the last, with no variety or relief from the grind.

Multiplayer: 7
Two players can tag-team the robotic menace cooperatively, which makes the game a lot more enjoyable. Unfortunately, there are no online options and the game’s two player limit seems odd given that there are three selectable characters.

Overall: 6
The combat of Spyborgs is fun enough to fuel an arcade-brawler revival, but a complete lack of variety, length, and design ingenuity derails its potential like a steel-tipped boot to the jaw.