Streets of Rage

The Good
The first in the legendary beat ‘em up franchise from Sega. All of which appeared on the Sega Genesis, and the first two on the Master System and Game Gear. These were some of the finest games on the Genesis and of the 16-bit era.

In Streets of Rage series you chose between 3 characters. Axel, Adam, and Blaze. They become vigilantes, when Mr.X’s stranglehold on the city becomes to tight. The ex-cops vow to rid the streets of his insidious presence. Eight stages of head busting action await you before you can face Mr. X.

The Graphics in SOR are not that good. It came out in 1991 and compare it to other games at the time, like Sonic.

The Music/Sound is one of the areas where this game really excels. Yuzo Kosihiro’s soundtrack is incredible, there is not a single tune that does not kick ass. The sound effects are passable, but the incredible score makes up for this ten-fold.

The Gameplay is solid. With plenty of bone-cracking action to go around. It is one of the most satisfying action games this side of Shinobi III.

The Bad
The Graphics are bad, for the time. And compared to the others this one is weak.

The Bottom Line
Play this game, it is still fun after all these years.

The Good
In Streets Of Rage you play as three ex-cops who quit cause all the corruption in the police and the city which used to be a nice place to live there names are Adam Hunter, Axel Stone, and Blaze Fielding so you clean up the streets by killing Mr. X the man behind the syndicate.

The gameplay is standard sidescrolling beat-em-up move from screen to screen killing and beating up bad guys with knives, glass bottles, pipes, and baseball bats throughout the 8 stages you have to dispatch of women with whips knife wielding maniacs and karate masters with a boss at the end of every level from Australians with boomerangs and clowns with wolverine type claws. At least this has team moves unlike other games you may have played.

But the music… oh how the music rocks the only song I can think of that’s not that good is the factory level the other 7 stages and the main theme are great kickass tunes.

The Bad
The graphics are not particularly good even for the year of 1991 with objects that aren’t the right size either too tall or wide.

The special move with the cop car is somewhat cheesy and is not usually needed as the game isn’t particularly hard.

The Bottom Line
Overall this game is a great genesis game while the second improves on it in just about everyway but that’s for another review.

The Good
This is such a fun game to play, alone or 2 player. The button response is perfect for the pace of this game. The graphics look pretty good and the game runs great without any lagging or choppy graphics. The levels are pretty cool and the artwork looks cool too. The music in this game is awesome too.

There are three characters to choose from (Adam, Axel and Blaze) each with unique abilities. I noticed Axel walks faster and Adam has long range kicks and they all have different attacks.

The enemies in this game are pretty interesting. From ninja's that jump from one side of the screen to the other to mistresses with whips, I'd say they're appropriate street scum.

The bosses in this game are pretty random, only in the sense that you would'nt expect big fat fire breathing fat guys. Did I mention they are fat?? A couple other random bosses would be the tall boomerang throwing guy, the tall guy with "Freddy Kruger" gloves and what street thug game would be complete with out the random wrestler? Yeah that's right, a wrestler, only he doesn't fake punch you, he's the real deal.

Oh, and the best part of the game, the weapons. There are pipes for swinging, bats for bashing, knives for "shanking" and bottles for breaking on peoples heads and of course using the remains to stab, repeatedly. Also when things get tough you can Call For Back-up and police cruiser will rush to the scene and lay down some heavy artillery.

The Bad
Don't get me wrong, I love this game but there are some things that annoy me. For instance the constant re-use of the same bad guys. The game continually changes the color of the enemies and then tries to pawn them off on you as some different bad guy. Then the game takes it a step farther by doing the same thing with Bosses! I guess creating a handful of more characters was too much to ask for.

The Bottom Line
Awesome action packed game, one of the best for Genesis. A good start to nice lil' trilogy.