If you'd told me prior to Lucha Fury that I'd be excited to play a side-scrolling beat-em-up game, I'd have slapped you silly. Like one of those guys in Final Fight... C'mon, you have to admit that games like Final Fight just won't leave our gaming subconscious. Try as we might, the image of muscular dudes striding across the screen and popping fists or flying kicks at enemies is indelibly burned into your brain, assuming you're in your 30s. Lucha Fury starts with something familiar, strays only a little from the basic mechanics that made the genre great, and still manages to put its own stamp on the proceedings. You might already have formed some perception of what a game called Lucha Fury should look like, and you're probably not far off base. Bright colors, zany costumes, tough guys, sexy ladies, and masks. Lots of masks...

The twists that make Lucha Fury worth checking out are the completely over-the-top animations, including finishing moves that would make any Mortal Kombat fan proud. Combine slick moves with some cool background animation and awesome music to produce a great party game, at the very least. Taking luchadors out of the ring is a great idea, especially when they proceed to explore a highly lucha-themed world. Imagine a cityscape where all the people you meet appear to be straight out of Mexican wrestling and where there are plenty of places to launch a great plancha to finish opponents. The rousing music has a feel somewhat like Los Lobos, at their rowdy bar-band best.

The premise of Lucha Fury appears to be that you and a cadre of fellow wrestlers leave the comfort of the ring when a group of bad hombres hauls off your special brand of power-drink called Pollojo. This magical drink can be harvested, strangely, by kicking around roosters that wander occasionally in the action. What would prompt a rooster to do this is a valid question, as is the question of why a rooster would transform into a bottle of tasty drink after being kicked! These kicks are essential to remaining fresh and ready in Lucha Fury, where there's no way for your character to die. As you lose energy from taking damage, Pollojo helps you recharge. If you deal enough damage, you can unleash extra-special moves. The basic moves are a catalog of light and heavy hits, punches, kicks, throws, and holds. It is standard stuff, but performed with Mexican flair.

The characters you have to play at the outset feature different move sets, and cater to players on either side of the power/skill spectrum. Whether you choose the fast, nimble girl or the hulking behemoth, you'll find plenty of ways to beat up on enemies. Up to four players can join in, making this a co-op experience that feeds our need for party action. Until Castle Crashers 2 comes along, this will keep me and my boys occupied. There are unlockable items, such as costumes, but the main incentive to replay is to gather high scores or test out alternate fighters. Replay isn't a big factor here, but Lucha Fury definitely provides a great distraction for those moments when you aren't ready to commit to a lengthy play session and just need a way to work out your thumbs.

Most games in the side-scrolling fighting category are accessible by virtue of requiring little more than button-mashing. Younger players can wail on the controller and do a decent job, while more practiced twitch-gamers will perfect the sequences of moves required to pull off advanced combos. Nailing these moves does score more points, so players using brute-force methods won't see their results as high up on the leaderboards. In this respect, Lucha Fury is a legit fighting game, even if the perspective lends itself more to arcade action. The enemies are generally a sorry lot, with the exception of bosses you'll face early on and throughout the game. Some of the larger enemies really require a concerted and coordinated attack from you and at least one friend, which works well for local co-op. The bonuses can really be racked up if you can coordinate team moves with your buddies, but this isn't required to win. All the co-op stuff is well thought out, and there are only a few places where enemies can overwhelm you. At least once (while exploring the sewer), we bumped into a quirky area where one of our fighters ended up getting stuck, so the game has a few glitches to be worked out. This seemed like a fluke, and was easily avoided. Even with two players, you'll find some challenge within the first few levels, so you won't breeze through Lucha Fury without opposition.

So the button-mashing is rampant, but there is definitely a method to the madness in Lucha Fury. First off, you can become a player that masters special moves and makes mincemeat of opponents, earning some big points by dropping plancha after plancha on the unsuspecting minions. Bosses are a different story, because you often have to observe and leverage some weakness of theirs to triumph. For variety, we liked this approach; you're still using punching and kicking constantly, but at least your goals are a bit more defined. At the end of each level, you may have earned some rewards like costume changes for characters or the ability to equip new moves. You can pause the action during any level to view move sets and other stats, but you can't save in the midst of a level. This is a bit of a drag in longer levels, but you can still earn points for failed attempts. Actually losing is quite difficult, but it has to do with fatigue. Characters eventually become cursed and start beating on their partners, instead of the bad guys. You can attempt to shake the curse off, but what you really need is healing. If both characters end up cursed, you'll eventually see the "game over" flag flying.

Engaging on many levels, if paper thin, Lucha Fury delivers exactly what it promises in its title. Lucha action galore, combined with some highly improbable and zany surroundings, rooted in time-worn and reliable fighting gameplay makes this a keeper. Don't invest unless you have at least one little monkey you can play with cooperatively, because the fun really starts when you can take several characters out on the town for a beat-down.