Streets of Rage

"I can't believe this game spawned sequels"

Streets of Rage 2 is easily one of my favorite games of all time. It had it all from fun, to moves,
to music, to the graphics. I loved everything about it. Recently, I went and got a bunch of old
Genesis games. I saw Streets of Rage 1, and decided to pick it up considering my experience
with two. After playing it, I truly have no idea why this game spawned two sequels. This game
has one good point and a million bad points. This is the kind of game that makes you think
about if you made the game, what you would have done to make it better. Believe me, I still
can’t believe what Sega was thinking when they released this. It almost seems unfinished.
Anyway, here’s the review, and I hope you stay far away from this game.

Gameplay: 2

Where do I begin? First off, you get three characters to choose from. Axel, Blaze, and Adam
are the people you take control of through this horrid game. All three of these characters are
almost identical when it comes to moves. I can’t even see a reason to have more than one
character when there is little to no difference in the characters. Of course, all three have their
boring little side stories, and of course the game makes an attempt to make them different from
each other, but I’m not fooled. Another major annoyance is the lack of special moves for each
different character. No matter if you play as Axel, Blaze, or Adam, you still get the same long
police raid special move. Frankly, I didn’t even want to use my special after the first time
because I didn’t want to sit and wait for it to get done. The special is slow, boring, and entirely
stupid, considering the cops can’t automatically follow you onto boats, and in the middle of
parks. Moving on to the pace of the game, it was slow, and put me to sleep. Through the whole
game I was walking, entirely slow, desperately wanting to play another game. The characters
move SO slow, and the worse part is, there isn’t an option to run or do a speed dash. After
stage one, I didn’t even want to go on. Going back to the subject of moves, there hardly was
any to choose from! I found myself either punching, very slowly of course, or tying up and doing
another repetitive move. In fighting games, you need variety, or else you get uninterested and
tired of playing. You want weapons? You want to hit enemies with objects other than your fists?
Well then, you get a wide range of weapons including a knife, and a steel pipe. I know, your
jumping for joy. I was jumping too, except I was jumping on my controller trying to speed the
game up. How about the bad guys? The huge rotation of the same five enemies will make your
head spin. You get the Garcia guy, the whip girl, and, three other people that I forget, probably
because I was sleeping. I rest my case, the gameplay on this game is just plain horrible. Sega
should thank me for giving it a two.

Story: 7

A violent band of street thugs has taken over the city. The syndicate now runs everything,
including the cops. Of course, we as the heroes, must go in and rid the world of this scum. So,
we meet the dull heroes Axel, Blaze, and Adam. I say dull, because in part one, these guys had
no originality, no stories, and nothing that set each other apart. I liked the story to two better,
atleast we were in it for personal reasons, to save a friend. They weren’t in it just to save the
city. Overall, not bad, but they could have added a few twists here or there.

Audio/Video: 8

Finally, we’ve made it to the only good point about the game. The music is superb in every way.
Each track has a good beat, and has a nice pace. Too bad the game doesn’t have a good pace.
Although not as good as the music from Streets of Rage 2, it still is much better than ninety
percent of the stuff your likely to hear out there. The boss music is especially well done, when
the bass kicks in, you know your in for one hell of a boring fight. As for the graphics, they aren’t
very detailed and don’t have a smooth look to them. It looks like individual sections of the
character were placed on them like a puzzle piece. Anyways, that analogy will have your head
spinning worse than the game. The music picks up a ten, but drops to an eight because of the
graphics.

Replayability: 2

Will I play it again? No. If you paid me will I play it again? Depends on how much, but the point
is this game is boring, slow, no fun, and a waste of my time. This is beside the fact that the game
is pretty difficult. It’s boring already, why did they have to make it difficult? I’m not playing this
game again, and there’s a good chance you won’t either. Especially with the lack of a variety of
moves, it just isn’t easily played again. I may be being a little tough on this game, but I hated it,
so a two is a rightful score for this borefest.

To Rent Or Buy:

Rent or buy huh? Well, count how many times I’ve said slow and boring in this review, and then
ask yourself this question once again. Not only do I not want to you to buy this game, I want
you to run far away from it if you ever see it. Don’t go into this game thinking about how the
series is classic, and how the sequel is so fun, have an open mind, and you’ll see right past the
hype.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 05/29/01, Updated 05/29/01