Beat Squad

## System requirements

Windows 7 or Higher

**Beat Squad** was a beat em' up game in similar vein to the Streets of Rage series.

## Story

Throughout the game if one member dies and has no more lifes, they will be out for the rest of the game. This effects some sections such as making some bosses harder, and making all of the jam sessions have less sound to them. This also effects the concert where the meter will be half empty. These conditions only apply to the first two players (the main duo), the other two players acts as disposable temporary band members that merely plays an instrument.

### Best Ending

When the concert was done with they suddenly became world wide top charters. Here they go and have a successful career, with no bad luck in there way anymore. Credit sequence has you play a song through the world with the charting headlines fading past you as you play. You can't fail this jam session.

### Good Ending

Once finished with the concert the crowd loved it, and they ended up becoming top charter in the United States. Although they still get the bad hate mail telling them that there music sucks, they can ignore it knowing that the worse is probably behind them. Credits has you open fan mail and toss the bad ones that contains a pipe bomb or some other deadly item. If you fail the whole studio explodes and credits roll over the remains. Though if you get gas the duo passes out, and if you get a simple "you stink" letter, they just hang there heads in shame and sit still. If a third or fourth player is present then they can help sort through the mail. If anyone fails at all then everyone else fails.

### Bad Ending

After that terrible performance that the duo didn't even finish, the crowd and company behind the concert decided to sue the group in a class action lawsuit. Here they end up becoming so broke that they must forfeit all there assets in the musical industry. Now they only perform on the internet with barely 20 views per video. They quit and vow to never make music again. Credit sequence has you running from a crowd throughout the world, and you have to survive. Failing causes you to be sucked into the crowd. To fail both of the main members must be dead. You can play this credit sequence with all four players, but even if they live after the main two dies, the sequence will be counted as failed.

## Jam Sessions

In between each stage you'll flashback to a jam session from before the events of the game happened. In it you must play the instrument by matching the buttons to the prompt. Each one is different. On the easiest difficulty "freestyling" is allowed, which pretty much means that you can hit whatever as long as it matches with the timing window.

* Piano - Hit the keys that match with the buttons. On keyboard they go from "q" to "y". On hard difficulty the q-y keys are only white with black being 1-6.
* Guitar - Use the "q" to "t" keys for first row and the arrow keys for strumming. Just hit the fret keys for taps. On harder difficulties a 2nd and even third row is added with those being "a" to "f" and "z" to "c".
* Vocals - On the keyboard hit or hold the key that shows up on the screen. Use the arrows to adjust the pitch meter to match that note. On more easy difficulties you only hit the letter keys which only displays vowels, followed with using the arrows to move pitch to the higher difficulty using the pitch meter along with the whole keyboard for the first letter of each vocal note.

## Stages

Any time during most stages you can take a break by entering your head space. Only place this does not apply to are bosses and major events such as the prison escape in the sea. Here you can roam around an area that represents the character's thought process for producing music. You can practice by summoning enemies, props, whatever you've seen at least once in a beaten stage, this is useful for leveling up, though in this head space leveling up does not count until in the main game again. From there the level up meter will have a boost applied to it depending on how much you practiced for with the meter boost going as high as a quarter remaining and the lowest being a few points of exp from simply being in the head space for a set amount of time.

* Inside a bar that gets engulfed in flames due to a massive fight that started.
* While running out of the bar a few super mad people chase you into the Highway. Here you must avoid traffic while also beating up the baddies. Some of them will be on motorcycles that you have to attack without getting hit yourself. Ending boss is a monster truck that has many pointy weapons jutting out.
* You hitch a ride inside of a cab to your studio where you were going to make more music, but the angry mob followed you wanting better music. You must finish the last song while fighting them off. With each hit you take the worse it will sound. If the quality control meter goes down to nothing you'll fail the stage and must restart.
* After a while the cops throw you inside of a jail. Here you can ether gain the respect of prison gangs that will help make the escape more easy, or befriend the cops via bribes. The more respect you gain from prisoners, the less harder the ending endurance round with the baddies will last. Befriending all cops will make it last 4x longer, and will cause 300 enemies in total that you must fight, while if you befriend all gangs you'll have to fight the cops instead with some help from the gangs. After the fight is over you'll both dash to the exit. If you go for the gang route the escape will have you jump off the cliff side into the water to swim. From here you'll be sent to a water stage on the way to land. As for the cop bribe route, after the fight you'll simply be transported via boat and be sent to the next stage, skipping the sea level.
* Under the sea while escaping you not only must fight sea monsters, but also rise to the surface to catch your breath while also staying hidden from the police lights. Another way to catch air if from air pockets that can rarely be seen from clams when they open. Simply interact with it and you're air meter will fill back up. Remember that when you catch your air you'll be vulnerable from 2-4 seconds depending on how low the meter is. If caught they'll start to shoot at you making you die fast unless you take cover or use a shield such as a clam. These choppers can be destroyed if you fling your ally upwards onto the chopper to which the other will fight the cop then sinking the chopper. Keep in mind that when the chopper falls you should stay out of the way of it's explosion so you won't get hit.
* Entering a musical palace of a vengeful man who wants to wipe out all of your music due to a life long grunge he had with you're record label. At one point you can enter a secret stage by hitting a loose ceiling tile that wobbles from striking the ground or walls hard enough. The boss is that of his record company. He will use all of his music to try and stop you. Only way to fight him is to use your musical skills too. Once the palace boss is defeated, you have to escape as it explodes all while 2x the goons try to stop you.
* *Secret.* A level that looks similar to Prince of Persia's first stage. All health items are potions, and to beat the stage fully you must fight everyone with a sword (can be found at the far left of the stage). You then have to fight the boss with his weakness being the sword of persia. Fighting with anything else will not damage him much.
* After all of this you must now go to your first ever concert performance. Depending on how good you did the concert will go well also, but if you died to many times, or failed to level up your skills enough through out the game the crowd is much more likely to heckle you. Keep in mind that once they start booing you for longer than a verse they will start to throw things at you and attack you. You can make it through the stage without dying or getting hit, but only if you did good enough in the rest of the game. If they end up attacking you, then you must fight all them. Or if you can't take it try leaving. To do this you have to go through the crowd as the other exits are blocked from falling props caused by the awful performance. This is the only stage that has a focus on performance that's not a jam session from a flashback.

## Trophies

In the game, trophies can be obtained from every stage by completing there secret goal.

## Cheats

All cheats once unlocked can be activated in the cheats menu.

## Anti-Piracy Payload

If the game detects that you're running on a pirated copy, it will let you play the game, but everyone including non hostiles will attack you. Also after the first jam session a secret ending will play where the duo go bankrupt due to everyone pirating there music. You'll then be unable to play the rest of the game, but you can still buy the game and it will fix the issue. Doing this is a complex way to unlock the "You wouldn't steal a car..." cheat.

## Trivia

### References

* The Road Kill trophy from the Highway stage looks close to the Road Runner from Looney Tunes
* License to Kill is a reference to James Bond's License to Kill.
* Inside the Palace there is a secret stage that has a similar layout to the first stage of Prince of Persia
	+ Another Prince of Persia reference is the fact that you can bring the sword into the boss of the Palace, and unlock the potion from the game
* "Tis Just A Scratch" cheat is a reference to Monty Python
* "Cuz This Is Thriller" cheat is a lyric from the Michel Jackson song "Thriller"
* "Blinded By The Light" cheat is a lyric from The Weekend's song of the same name
* "Double Vision" references the song of the same name
* "Aqualung" is the song name from Jethro Tull
* "I'm Becoming Insane" is a lyric from an Infected Mushroom song
* "No lights, no music, just anger" is a lyric from System of a Down
* "You wouldn't steal a car..." is quoted from the anti-piracy PSAs of the early 2000s.