HIT PARADE

LIVE ON KNOCKOUT 13.

Every Friday night an underground network takes over the airwaves with HIT PARADE, a no-rules fight show shot on condemned sets across a rotting city. Contestants sign up for money, revenge or fame. The cameras never cut away.

HIT PARADE is a 3D arena fighting game. The two fighters face each other inside a round or eight-sided ring that you can walk all the way around: tap STEP to sidestep off the attack line, hold it to circle-walk around your opponent, and the camera orbits with you. Straight attacks and straight projectiles can be sidestepped on a read (big bodies step less well than small ones); homing attacks (sweeps, spins, wide hooks) track a stepper, and every contestant has homing tools. The ring wall is a weapon too: launch someone into it for a wall splat. Underneath it is classic versus fighting: walk, dash, jump, crouch, block (hold SHIFT or hold back), light, medium and heavy attacks, specials, throws, parries, IMPACT attacks, supers, step-attacks and a cinematic Level 3 super for every contestant.

THE CAST - twelve fighters:

• JOHNNY RIOT, the headliner boxer
• PATCH, the floor manager rushdown
• BRUNO "THE FRIDGE", an armored grappler
• THE GREAT ZAMBINI, a teleporting card-throwing zoner
• OFFICER KRANE, a charge fighter with a riot shield
• LOTUS LIU, a drunken-stance fighter
• BONEYARD, the butcher of Block Street
• SPIN, an aerial b-boy
• GAZZA, who fights with a football that rebounds off the ring wall
• RERUN, the contestant who counters everything
• THE FREAK (mini boss) and RICKY MARQUEE, the host and final boss, who changes his act halfway through the fight. Clear THE SEASON to unlock both.

MODES:

• THE SEASON: an arcade ladder of 8 episodes against the CPU - random contestants, your rival, the mini boss and the host in his own control room. The CPU sidesteps straight attacks it reads, answers steppers with homing moves and circles off the wall. Two bonus rounds break it up: BRAWL BREAK (45 seconds against waves of studio goons that come at you from every side of the ring) after episode 3 and HECKLER TOSS (40 seconds of parrying what the crowd throws in from all around) after episode 6. Continues, a closing story for every contestant and a local score board. THE PILOT is the short cut: 5 episodes with BRAWL BREAK after episode 2.
• VERSUS: two players on one screen, or you against the CPU at difficulty 1 to 8, in any of the five arenas.
• ONLINE: quick match or a private four-letter room code, with rollback netcode.
• TRAINING: a dummy that stands, crouches, jumps, blocks, sidesteps, circles or fights back as a CPU, 3-second record and playback, input display, frame data, 3D hitboxes and every move list.

FIVE 360-DEGREE ARENAS, with the crowd on every side: The Rust Theater (a round pit with a blue brick wall), Butcher Block (an eight-sided ring of white tile), Wheel of Pain (a round ring of neon panels), Channel 13 Rooftop (a round ring of steel cables) and The Control Room (an eight-sided ring of steel rails).

Three control types with the same timing underneath: EASY (the keyboard default: SHIFT blocks, four special keys that each fire one of your fighter's specials, one key per super, and mashing the light attack runs an auto combo), SIMPLE (the special button plus a direction) and CLASSIC (motion inputs). A slim controls bar shows your keys during a fight (F1 hides or shows it), and HOW TO PLAY, character select, the pause menu and settings each draw a keyboard map of your keys with your fighter's special names. Keyboard, gamepad and on-screen touch controls (with two STEP buttons).

Comic violence only: hits land with a hard freeze and a red cartoon splash (or sparks, or confetti), never realistic gore.