It was 1991 and video games were still young and exciting. The Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis if you're evil) was only around 1 year old when this beast of game came out. And that game was....well you've already read the title, anyway, it was called Streets Of Rage. For those unfamiliar, Streets Of Rage is 2D side scrolling beat 'em up, akin to that of Final Fight or Golden Axe, in which you go from the left side of the screen all the way to the right side of the screen punching people in the face. Sounds good already huh?
Starting up the game it gives you short cinematic explaining that a secret criminal syndicate has taken over the government and are wreaking havoc in a once "happy, peaceful, productive city." And in comes the 3 main characters, all ex-cops taking the law into their own hands. There's Adam, who's a boxer, Axel, a skilled martial artist and Blaze, a female judo expert. Non of their apparent fighting styles really come across though, since when did judo teach flip kicks? Each character has slightly different stats based on power, jump and speed, though when in game they're not really that noticeable.
The player must cross through 8 levels, or Rounds as they are called, battling a variety of enemies who all have various attacks and quirks, such as the legion of ginger punks who punch you in the face or come at you with knives or the ho's who hit you with their whips! Each henchman that crosses your path can be, and will be, victims to your combos or grab attacks which are easily achieved by simply walking up to your enemy and mashing the B button, or to throw them you just walk into them and you'll initiate a clinch style grapple. From there you can mash B to give them some knees and elbows or press away and B to toss them into their buddies, you can even flip over them with the jump button and give the a nice German suplex, but if you find yourself getting swarmed and in trouble pressing the A button will call for some back up who will unleash a special attack.
During the course of the stage you come across objects such as phone booths, trash cans, traffic cones etc. which are all breakable with a single punch. When broken, the phone booths (or whatever you've just plunged your fist into) reveal power ups or items such as apples to restore your health or steel pipes to break teeth with or even bags of gold to increase your score. At the end of each Round you have to fight a huge disproportional boss like a wrestler or a fat fire breathing guy. Freddy Krueger even makes an appearance!
The last stage of the game takes place in the Syndicate H.Q, on the last floor of a huge building. Pushing through enemies and previously defeated bosses, albeit from right to left this time, you come face to face the with the head guy, Mr. X! What is interesting about this meeting though is that Mr. X actually offers you to join him as his right hand man, now you can say no, pound his face in and beat the game with the "good" ending OR you can accept his offer in which he activates a trap door and sends you back to Round 6. If you make your way back to him and then beat him you get a pretty cool "bad" ending where you become the new head of the Syndicate, what's even cooler is if you're playing 2 player and one of you accepts his offer and the other declines, you both have to fight...to the death. And by the death I mean until you have no more continues!
Just before I finish I must stress how great the music is in this game, by the end you'll have at least one track stuck in you're head that you'll whistle to yourself for hours on end.
- GAMEPLAY: Beating up some guys and walking right doesn't sound particularly interesting but I assure you the game is super fun, even more so with a friend.
8/10 - CONTROL: The controls of the game are easy, intuitive and precise. Seriously how can you fuck up mashing B?
10/10 - SOUND: As I said in closing, the soundtrack to this game is funky and catchy and will never dissapoint, although the sounds themselves like the punching and breaking of objects sound a little too soft.
9/10 - GRAPHICS: Yes the game is 20 years old and to be honest they look it but are they bad? Not by a long shot. The characters look good, the dark and grimy stages look great and the HUD is clear.
8/10 - OVERALL: This is a great example of a beat 'em up, it has great replay value, looks cool and has fantastic music.
9/10
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