Streets of Rage 2

"Still as good as ever, beat em up's, how they used to be."

Ah, one of my personal favourites, I spent many an hour playing this title in my youth, busting the skulls of hoodlums. Now I'm sure most of you have played this classic title at some point during the early 90's. Well, Microsoft thanks to Xbox Live Arcade, has brought the fun of this Sega title and many other old school games to the attention of a whole new generation of gamer's.

Story

I can sum this up in one sentence, to be honest. Bad guy underworld boss Mr. X is back in town, he manages to kipnap your friend, now it's time for revenge.

Now with that out of the way, it gives me great pleasure, to say that the story won't really matter, cos once you get into the thick of the gameplay, it will be so much fun, that you won't really give it any thought.

Graphics

Ahhh.... The joys of 2D graphics, pixels and sprites.

Now, obviously gven that is now a 15 year old game, I thought it would be a tad unfair to match it up graphically, to games of this day and age from a similar genre. So I shall view the game on it's own merit's.

First of all, it pleases me to say, that they kept absolutely faithful to the original and nothing seems to have been lost in the translation to XBLA.

The character's while large, and somewhat stereoptypical are good, each are large and very well detailed giving each a distinct personality, at least in the main cast of character's, they all animate fluidly and smoothly.

Thanks to the hardware in the Xbox 360 being vastly superior to the original Mega Drive which bore Streets of Rage 2 originally, the game is ultra smooth, the frame rate is kept at a rock steady 30 frames per second, with no slowdown whatsoever, regardless the amount of enemies that happen to be trying to smash your face in.

The enemies themselves are a varied bunch and are quite interesting.

Ranging from the basic denim wearing thugs, to mohawked enforcer's, knife wielding leather clad Bikers, Ninja's, Muay Thai Kickboxer's, Boxer's, a boss who seems to be a corss breed of the Predator and Street Fighter's Blanka, a baseball fan who has had a few hot dogs too many, a Jet-pack wearing flying boss, a pro wrestler who appears to be a clone of the World Wrestling Federation's the Ultimate Warrior from the early 90's, a Super Ninja and finally the big, bad tuxedo wearing Mr. X himself.

Sound

One thing everyone remembers about Streets of Rage 2, is the music, composed by legendary game composer, Yuzo Koshiro, who also composed the classic soundtracks of the Sonic series.

The soundtrack is great, it's a mix of techno and drum and bass, which is an absolute blast to listen to, it really helps you game into the game, that little bit more. I enjoyed it so much, I have the game's soundtrack downloaded.

The sound effect's themselves are quite good, each punch and kick has a different sound to it, when it connects. As do the the weapon's for instance the Katana has a nice slash sound to it, and the lead pipe connects with a vicious sounding crack.

The voicework is limited but memorable, each of the main character's have their trademark attack shouts, such as Axel's call of "Grand Upper!" (I thought he was saying "Grab the car" when I was younger) when he connects with his dashing uppercut move. The leather clad bikers give a sinister laugh as they carve you up with their knives.

Gameplay

Now this is where the game proves time and again, that age is no factor. Ever wonder why people say they don't make good beat em up's any more, this is the reason, no matter how hard developer's have tried over the years to recapture the scrolling beat em up magic of Final Fight or Streets of Rage 2, it just doesn't seem to work well in 3D. For me this was the peak of 2D beat em up gameplay.

You as one of the four main characters. Axel, Max, Blaze or Skate, must progress through the eponymously titled Streets of Rage and take Mr. X goon's, before finally taking down the big boss himself.

Each character has a unique fighting style, we have Axel a well rounded fighter with decent speed and strength, Max a Pro-Wrestler friend of Axel's slowest of all four of the main character's but by far the hardest hitting, with throws and combo's that can KO many low level enemies easily. Blaze, acrobatic, nimble and highly versatile, and finally Skate, Adam's little brother named for constantly being in his roller-blades, lacking in power comparing to the others he makes up for it, with blistering speed, being by far quicker than any of his companion's.

Naturally, you have many different types of attacks available to use against your many foes, you have your basic attacks which can be used in combination attacks, you can can get up close and personal and grab hold of your enemies to throw them, also, each character has a blitz dash attack activated by pressing the forward button and hitting the attack button. You have three types of jumping attack, and each 2 character has 2 special attacks, the first special attack drains life only when it hit's an enemy, the 2nd will drain your life, whether you connect or not, so pick your shots carefully.

You can also acquire, many weapon's you can use, such as lead pipe's, knives, Katana's and even grenades.

Every foe, has a different method of attack, for low level thug, they may close the distance out-number you and commence pummeling, sometimes they can carry weapon's, making them much of a threat. Others are crafty some as the Y-signal type enemy, who wait on the edges a level and try to sucker you in, so they can turn away and catch you with a surprise attack, or pick you up and throw you. Then there are the bosses who will often have as many fighting techniques at their disposal as you do, plus some come with horde's of weaker enemies backing them up.

Another feature that makes Streets of Rage 2 great, is the 2 player co-operative, which can be local or played over Xbox live, this adds a tremendous amount of replay value, and leads to the fun Vs mode.

Conclusion.

If modern beat em ups don't do it for you, or you, like me, yearn for some nostalgic gaming, I would definitely recommend you to give this one a go.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/19/08

Game Release: Streets of Rage 2 (US, 08/29/07)