Zombie Revenge

"So Sega, you guys mind giving us a real Streets of Rage?"

Ah another wonderful arcade Naomi port to the Dreamcast. The best way to describe this game is that it would be a cross between Sega's great early 1990's beat-em-up Streets of Rage and Sega's lightgun shooter The House of the Dead. Not a bad idea by any means...but not entirely great.

GRAPHICS: 9/10

The graphics are done nicely here. It shows why the Naomi Board is such a good deal for Sega. The monsters are incredibly detailed, and look great. The women you meet up with seem to have the somewhat larger than normal breasts that most games seem to do. But the result is something that is really nice to see if you just can't get enough of it in games nowadays. Backgrounds look great, especially the levels where there is fire. One of the bosses has a attack where he attempts to electrocute you with lightning. The lightning really looks great, in fact it actually looks better than the lightning that Quake III: Arena's lightning gun shoots out. For the most part the graphics have been done quite well for the most part. The characters could have used some more attention because they look kind of plain compared to everything else.

SOUND: 7/10

The music sounds almost exactly like the music from The House of the Dead 2...funny thing is, the voices seem alike as well. So prepare for that cheesy voice acting again. Is it really so hard for companies to get good voice acting in games?? I'm tired of these shoddy voices. The music isn't bad by any means since I enjoyed the HOTD2's music. But I can't stand the voice acting.

CONTROL: 6/10

The control leaves some things to be desired, but it is not entirely awful. The attacks really just consist of tapping the attack buttons and turning a punch into a multiple hit combo. Sometimes it is a pain trying to face the enemy you want to attack when you get surrounded by several attacking enemies. It would have been better if you could have had a way to keep yourself locked onto a enemy you want to attack. However you can lock on when you have guns for some reason which is a bit odd to me. Controls are decent, could have been better.

GAMEPLAY: 6/10

What is there to say about the game? It's exactly like all the other beat-em-ups. Fight your way through the level, fight a boss, and then move on to the next. If you like that formula, then it's not such a bad thing. But it hurts the replay value. The game is all right on the fun factor. It's cool in the beginning, but it soon fades. Other than the actual game, there is a lame fighting mode. This is absolutely pointless and boring. Whoever has a gun will win hands down. If you land the first punch, chances are you will win because you can take that first punch and turn it into a combo which gives the other player no chance. There are VMU games as well.

REPLAY VALUE: 4/10

This game suffers in the replay value. Once you beat it, there is really no reason to go and play through again, unless of course you are so overwhelmed by what a good game it is, you get the urge to play again. It keeps that Dynamite Cop replay value, which if you do know, Dynamite Cop's replay value was severely lacking.

OVERALL: 6/10

Definitely rent before you buy this one. You can easily beat it in one sitting. After you beat it, there's not much else to do. It's good for a quick thrill, but there are better games out there to buy. For the moment, it's something to hold you over until Sega ever makes an announcement for another Streets of Rage game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/18/00, Updated 05/18/00