MMA Favorite

A review of the classic Streets of Rage game

I have just recently bought the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection thingy on Xbox 360 (it was known as something else in the states) and started playing the games that made my early years (well most of them, some like Road Rash and James Pond are abcent from the disk, but most of the games I loved as a little kid are in the collection).

Of course I was a huge Streets of Rage fan as a child, which Mega Drive/Genesis player wasn’t? I’d always regretted the fact I’d never played SoR3 though, it was the one Mega Drive game I always wish I’d played (much like Silicon Valley on the N64), and here was a disk promising me the chance to make up for the years I missed out on the final game of the trilogy. However I made myself a promise, I was to complete the previous game before I could move on. So I’m starting with the games which were the firsts, so theres this and Golden Axe mainly (i’m not doing it for Sonic as the sequels were imo far better), then moving on to the second and then the third…at last.

The game was (from memory) on a cartridge (on the mega drive) with a Shinobi game that was always impossible, I think I once managed to get onto the third level as a child and a Golden Axe game (think it was the original) that I could get to the final level on with relative ease, but only finished it once. Though SoR was by far my favourite back then despite the similarites between all three games (2-d side scrolling fighting based games). The genre was at it’s peak around then with games like Double Dragon and Final Fight to add the the Golden Axe/Shinobi/SoR/Altered Beast (all on the 360 disk) out at the early 90′s late 80′s. Now a days the nearest to it would be Viewtiful Joe (merely on bases thats it’s “2-d” and side scrolling, though with a lot of modern additions). The genre of my childhood has seemingly died, alas, long live collection disks and ROMs.

So onto the actual game which was released in 1991 for the Mega Drive, as “Streets of Rage” in Europe and the USA and as “Bare Knuckle” in Japan. The game was a huge smash (as far as games were back then, before the Playstation took gaming to the mainstream level), and was a hugely enjoyable game of good V evil. It was to be Sega’s rival to Capcoms huge Final Fight which had been taken to the home console market under an exclusive deal with Nintendo (for the Super Ninetendo Entertain System/Snes console).

The story is based on the good old idea that a city has been over run by criminals who have bad intentions for the place. HThe criminals have bought the governming bodies and the crime provention forces allowing them to run amock across the city with their own free reign. This is where you step in as one of the three characters need to kick ass and save the city and dethrone the all powerful Mr X.

The game see’s you (and a friend if you wish) controlling either Adam (a boxing specialist), Axel (a bit of a tough guy) or Blaze (a hot judo chick…) who each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Such as Blaze’s erm…blazing speed which couples with her relative lack of power, whilst Axels inability to jump more than 2 feet off the ground limits his flying knee move he has more power, whilst Adam has by far the longest reach and hits harder than Blaze. All three are former officers who broke away to fight the good fight and save the city.
See good old fashioned Good V Evil, what more could we ask for?
The vigilantes have the help of back up (in the form of a police car as the “special”). The car fires either napalm or grenades depending on who called for the back up (player 1 or player 2) which kills all the “normal” opponent on the screen (typically thug types, with the Denim jackets that were popular at the time, people who look like turtles and women with whips…I know what your thinking…and yes…yes it was to a poor innocent little boy like I was back then).

The badguys (staying on the theme) do get tougher as you get further on in the game. The first level’s baddies usually take a good combo to die, whilst the latter one stake several (the White women from the last level take a damn good whooping to be honest), and they become clever as well. Though through out the game they approach you from both sides of the screen which can make the game relatively problematic it’s self, with 5 or 6 enemies all attacking you at once.

As well as the typical baddies, you also come across end of level bosses who like your players have their own personalised life bars (something the baddies in the sequels would all have) and often some obvious trait to show they are the boss. Ranging from the Boomer-ranging boss of the first level, to green ninja twins at the end of the 5th level (they are palette swaps of Blaze, but niegh on untouchable).
Several of these become mid level bosses, with the Fire Breathing boss of Level 4 becoming an annoyance in level 6 and the wrestler from level three turning up part way through level 5.
They all show up in the final level (8) in a tougher form (with out life bars) with the ninja twins being the ultimately a game killing opponent.

The levels them selves start off in the city streets with the first two based there, then heads to the beach where the bad guys must have been trying to to top up there tan to impress the boss. The following level is a broken bridge whish is sadly the worst level in the game. The level just seems relatively pointless in all honesty, though could be used in a narative way to show the players are heading onto the boat of level 5 (it made sense in someones head…). The 6th level is based in a factory with some level hazards include a “squishing thing” and a moving floor which can take you into pains way. A good if difficult level that leads you closer to Mr X’s hide out, that just happens to be up the top of a giant elevator. The 7th level (which is on the elevator) makes several changes to the rest of the game as theres no real side scrolling, your on the elevator and baddies join you on it. Theres no boss as such, just a matter of fighting your way to the top before you enter the headquarters of level 8.

The final level is (even to seasoned gamers) an incredible chellenge as the game again changes slight (with you now scrolling left to right) and with no police back up. The level see’s you taking on all the normal bosses through out the level before coming up against the powerful (and gun totting) Mr X in the final battle.

Despite the relative lack of levels the game was based on an arcade theme, and back in the days of the Mega Drive battery back up was either non-exsistant or incredibly exspensive (not sure which, but it wasn’t until much later with things like Sonic 3 that games fully incoprtated battery back up to full potential on the console).

The controls (can’t believe I’ve not mentioned them yet, are simple, with the D-Pad of the old control moving (left to the left stick on the 360) your characters, with the A,B,C button all doing one of “attack”, “jump” and “special” (I can’t remember them off hand sadly). Making the game simple to control. The characters were also able to pick up items through out the levels, ranging from the point rewards (gold bars and bags of money), the health replenishing (chicken and apple) to the weapons.
Now if the game was first released now you’d have seen a certificate of at least 15 because of the the useage of the weapons which made the game so much fun. You could pick up the likes of a baseball bat or lead pipe, a pot of pepper (used to make the opponents sneeze…). But (this is where the 15 rating would have come in) you can also pick up bottles and knives (after the first hit with a bottle, it shashes leaving you with a sharp ended bottle). In this knife concious society, this would have been deemed almost glorification of knife crime.

The games music and sound effects are simple but yet when the game was released, no one expected the audio collection of true music of a Rock Band, or the Orchestrial bluster of a newer Final Fantasy. The games simple sounds still appear as relatively solid reminders of where the game comes from, the simple sounds remiscent of many of the games of the console (which seemed to jump hugely in quality for the release of Sonic 3 some 5 years later).

The graphics, like the sounds are looking like the (almost) 20 year old game that it is. The characters are relatively blocky and with lots of the graphics looking realtively in need of a polish, however this again gives the game the feeling that your still playing a damned good game where graphics play second fiddle to fun. Something many of the newer games seem to forget is that games are there to be fun, not to be visually admired like a picture.

The games that followed in the series did tidy up the graphics significantly but the technology of the day would never have allowed a game that would have shone in todays world. Though this again adds to the charm, the game shows it’s age, yet is still as playable as ever, theres betting looking games on the market which are bigger, but even now, very few are better.

The game has aged much better than it’s “partner in crime” in Golden Axe which looks terrible in comparision, despite still being as playable as ever. The games of my childhood, don’t need rose tinted glasses to be enjoyed, as they are still truely top tier games, that could well interest the newer gamers who look beyond how shiney the water looks. Though SoR II is a much improved game (still not played 3…) this is where it started for the series and for me, and so it will always have a piece of my heart, much like your first love.

Now if anyone can remember how you beat those annoying twins with out using 3 lives at a time, can you share it with me?

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