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Sega’s 1991 beat ‘em up brawler, Streets of Rage has returned in downloadable form via the Nintendo Wii’s virtual console service on February 19 and it brings with it classic side scrolling beat em up action, a genre that has sadly gone the way of the rail shooter and platformer.
Immediately compared to Final Fight, Streets of Rage had a lot to live up to. The SNES counterpart was a great classic game, complete with a roving mass of fans who were not convinced that Sega could bring home a similar experience. In their first outing though, they proved that Streets of Rage could more than stand up to Final Fight. The graphics and sound were classic arcade fare. With simple sprites, nothing impressive for 1991, but surely nothing underdeveloped, the game pumped a rousing round of action oriented music and generic, similar looking enemies. All three main character choices were well detailed and the bosses were some of the more interesting of the time, but like most games of this genre, the settings and enemies were generic offerings, no more interesting than the next.
As the name insinuates, Streets of Rage is about raw destruction, picking up random bits of bottle and boxes and beating those that get in your way into a pulp. As a game that hit the market before the advent of ridiculous blood and gore, it doesn’t offer much in the way of overwhelming death, but it does a fairly decent job of keeping the brutality level on par with the expectations of its gamers.
The story is simple. Three ex-cops, Adam, Blaze, and Axel take to the streets to clean up the cesspool that has been created by local drug lord, Mr. X. The interactions are slightly comical and the message incredibly simple; don’t mess up your city with drugs or you might find a glass bottle upside your head.
The standard sets of features apply to each character with Adam as the strong, yet slow one, Blaze the fast yet weaker one, and Axel as the generally well balanced one. It doesn’t particularly matter which character you choose though as the amount of damage you do is generally the same, their attacks metered by the speed at which they perform them.
The levels are relatively short and there are only 8 of them, but they blister by with impressive speed, not quite too hard but with enough variation and intrigue to make the game a great replay as well as a good group game.
Generally though, Streets of Rage didn’t reach its prime until its sequels, Streets of Rage 2 and 3 were released. The first entry, while solid, was unfortunately lacking in some of the more incredible graphics and involved game play that the next two games managed to bring to the series.
Regardless, it’s a classic game that they unfortunately don’t tend to make anymore and a fun aside when waiting for the next big offering from Nintendo. A must download for any Genesis, arcade, or classic beat ‘em up fans out there. |
