Streets of Rage - Sega Megadrive

In the early 90's, I was introduced to Streets of Rage 2, and this game quickly became one of my favourite games of all time and made me a hardcore gamer (I'd always loved games, but games like this and Golden axe fuelled my pixellated passion).
A couple of years later, I played Streets of Rage 3, it was also an awesome game.
After playing these two games, I wondered what the first one would be like. Well, later on in 96' (I think), I got a compilation cart for Christmas (Mega Games 6)
This cart featured some of the best Mega Drive games, including Revenge of Shinobi and Golden Axe one of these games was also Streets of Rage.
When I played this game, what I played was a game that was a little different then it's sequels, so I was in for a change. But what I also saw from this game like it's sequels is that it was a wonderful masterpiece.



Graphics 8

This game looked really nice for it's time (1991).
I liked how the backgrounds and look gave a dark feel to the city. The neon lights really help too to express the city feel. While the graphics were good for it's time and even though this game was made early in the Sega Mega Drive' lifetime, I feel that the graphics could've been a little bit better, I feel that the game still has a little bit of that 8-bit feel to it. The game looks a little muddy to me in some places, and so does some of the characters. But overall, it's still pretty good.



Gameplay 9

It all comes together in the gameplay section.
Pummel your way through 8 levels packed to the brim with all sorts of bad guys, until you reach Mr. X himself. The levels themselves are fairly well designed, but are mostly a 'left to right' affair.
There are more than enough enemies to beat the stuffing out of. The single player game can begin to feel a little tiring, but having a friend to play with can add a lot to the game. There are a few bonus moves thrown in when you play the two player mode, and they are fairly effective. Although it may sound similar to many other beat 'em ups from the past, there is something that sets it apart: The special weapon.
In trouble? Getting your booty booted? Press the A button to call in your police friends. The button will wipe out normal enemies, and deal hefty damage to bosses.



Sound 9

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 fight.
The sound effects are also superb! There is no way I can fault it. Glass shatters when you wrap a bottle around someone's head, the back-up cars tires squeal as the pull up beside you to eliminate your foes who scream in pain when defeated.
The sound, for the time is very visceral and brings the world to life.



Story 6

Here is the story from the manual. ''What was once a happy, peaceful, productive city full of life and activity, has fallen into the hands of a secret criminal syndicate. The leader of the syndicate has somehow managed to keep his identity a secret. The organization soon absorbed the city government (anyone can be had if the price is right). They even have the metropolitan police force in their back pocket. Looting, random violence and destruction are rampant. No one is safe walking the streets, day or night...

As the chaos continued at full strength, three young police officers tried to establish a special attack unit. They were repeatedly refused by their superiors, most of whom had either been bought by the organization or were too afraid to make a stand. One day, when they could no longer stand by and watch their city being demolished, they quit the force!

Adam Hunter, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding decided to forego their careers in legal law enforcement and put their lives on the line. They are without weapons, but each possesses
great hand-to-hand combat abilities. Take them into the heart of the city and battle the most
dangerous wave of bad dudes and chicks ever assembled. Make the city a place where people no longer have to walk the Streets of Rage!''

Not too bad as far as video game stories go, but it's no Phantasy Star. The evil criminal organisation angle has been done to death in video games, so points were deducted.



Overall 8

While being a classic Mega Drive game, it was still too easy back then, and still is now. While it's sequel showed everyone how a scrolling beat 'em up should be done, it would not have been if it were not for this piece of work. If you haven't heard of the game (there are a few of you out there), go search for it (it's now available as DLC on newer consoles or within the ultimate Mega Drive collection), and pick it up for a few weeks of gaming goodness.
This was a great game! It was a very good way to start up an absolutely fantastic series! I would recommend this game to anyone, and I also recommend the entire series to anyone, all three are great games. Thank you Sega for making such a great game. Now stop ignoring this series and show some respect to your fans.

ICO - PS2

Beauty. Absolute beauty. I could ramble on and on about the sheer beauty of this game, but since I'm doing a review here, I'll let some poor soul listen to my sleep-inducing blabber later.



Graphics 10

This must be the first game on the PS2 that proves that sheer pixel count and deep colour pallet aren't the only things that give gamers a visual treat.
There is still that other thing called... Design. Once you start, take a good look at the castle. Then take a look at everything else. It is pure artistic beauty. The entire castle is immensely huge and designed with an imagination that rivals the classic medieval castles of Europe.
The walls are crumbling, the bridges are broken and the passages are all caved in. It looks so incredibly real that you'd think you were taking a filmed tour of a real castle. And it's all backed up by a nice resolution that doesn't fail to please eye.
Plus the character graphics look simply great. Each of the relatively few characters are very unique, from the horned Ico to the pale-grey Yorda.

And don't forget that fog. The fog gives this an authentic feel of age and mystery, keeping you in the mood to explore all the mysteries found within the castle.
The water too is impressive. They don't just reflect the surroundings, they actually FLOW! The awe-inspiring environments are the ones that set the mood of the story.



Gameplay 9

This offers challenging puzzles with rather simplistic combat. The puzzles consist mostly of pushing blocks and jumping and hanging. They will require proper timing and thinking, but nothing that will really have you thinking for long periods of time. Expect to encounter a lot of them, as the game is littered with puzzles.

As for combat... well it's a practical minimal. First off, the is no life bar (a mostly unheard of concept in Action/Puzzle games), and fighting consists of swinging your weapon around taking out those shadows that come in from holes in the ground to take Yorda off to somewhere unpleasant.
The only way to die in this game is by either taking a nasty fall or Yorda gets carried off. If she does get carried away, Ico turns to stone. Also, certain puzzles may require you to leave Yorda for a while, and doing so will run the risk of baddies appearing in her room and take her away. Make sure to do things quick and get back to her ASAP.

Unlike other games, Yorda isn't a girl who will always follow you around. You must TAKE her around. Press and hold the R1 button to hold her hand and take her out of the castle.
If she gets wanders off far, use R! to also get her to come, jump over gaps etc.
However, her AI is superb, and she won't do things if it'll obviously take her to her doom. Sometimes she'll hesitate, and at some refuse outright. If she does, you may need to find some other way for her.

The controls are spot on and you should have no fear of accidentally running off the side. Your moves are pretty much basic.
It's just walk/run, attack, jump, move object and call/hold hand. They are tight and responsive and will pose no problem. Plus the camera will almost always give you the best angle, so don't worry about not seeing where you need to go.



Sound 10

There is beauty within silence. There is hardly any music in this game.
You can easily count the tracks with one hand. Not that it's bad, in honesty it's not needed at all. This is the first game I've ever played that never relied on music to fill the environment and mood.
It is greatly replaced by the graphics and sound. Subtle sound effects like clangs, footsteps and rustling leaves all add to the atmosphere of a huge castle. However anyone looking for magical melodies will definitely be disappointed.
You can say I gave it a 10 for the lack of music, but it's their decision to minimize music and use other effects and sound that makes it really deserve that score.
The voice acting is done by Japanese voice actors (Seiyuus in their language), and with a untranslatable language the voice acting is near flawless.



Story 9

Ico's the title of this game, and it's also the name of the games lead protagonist. He's a young lad who just so happens to have horns, and because of that his village has him locked up in an abandoned castle high above (and I mean HIGH) a lake.
Upon being imprisoned, he soon escapes his sarcophagus-like cage, and finds out the castle isn't as abandoned as everyone thinks. He would later find a young and mysterious girl named Yorda, and here the journey of these two young ones begin as they try to escape from their prison. But there are dark entities out to reclaim Yorda and a few surprises to look forward to.
While the story doesn't seem all that engaging, you really feel for the characters and want to help them with their predicament. That's excellent writing right there!



Overall 9.5

I would really urge you to buy it now. Games of this size and uniqueness are ridiculously rare. You may never chance upon a game like this in you whole life ever again. If you can get the PS2 copy GREAT! Get it. Or you can wait until the end of this month and pick up the HD remaster on PS3(which comes packaged with the prequel: Shadow of the Colossus)



(Some screenshots taken from the HD remaster)

Super Mario World - Snes

Super Mario World was the first game released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
No doubt it would become popular. It was a Mario game for Christ's sake! With it's new jump to the 16 bit era Nintendo fans across the globe were sure that this would be excellent. They were right.



Graphics 10

The graphics blew away anything to come before it.
The NES games looked like Pong compared to this new game. Mario 3, sorry, you were surpassed! Even the mighty Genesis paled in comparison to it's awesomeness. The sprites were about as big as Super Mario 3. However, they were now much more detailed.
Clothing looked better, face looked more detailed, and character animations were alot better. The backgrounds were completely amazing. Because of the Super Nintendo's hardware, it was capable of a new kind of special effect, known as Mode 7.
With Mode 7, the game was enabled 3 background layers, not counting the sprites themselves. With the Mode 7, the background really seemed like it was moving, rather than other games where it was just scrolling wallpaper. Also with Mode 7, it allowed sprites to become bigger, without losing resolution.
This let there be Bowser's huge floating balloon which seemed to jump out at you and looked really pretty. Also it allowed for bigger groups of enemies to be there such as the triceratops heads. With all of these plus great special effects, it was one of the prettiest games at the time.



Gameplay 10

The gameplay far surpasses any of the Mario games to come before it (save Mario 3 which is close). Not just because you now have a world map you can travel around giving the game a non-linear game-path. Not just because you now have tons of extras and new items. Not just because the graphics are amazing, the sound is great, and there are even secret worlds to visit.
No, all that plus something... Yoshi. Now, despite all its new things one could say that it lost the great stuff of Mario 3. But there is certainly 1 thing it has over Mario 3.
It's got a playable dinosaur character, which is not only extremely helpful but a buddy you grow attached to. I feel embarrassed to say it but when I was little I cried when I lost the Yoshi I had for 6 levels. He's just that cool. Finally, probably one of the first games to ever do it, you have an animal you can correspond, use, and ride on in a game.
My hat goes off to you, Shigeru Miyamoto; this has got to be one of your best ideas ever.
Besides Yoshi there are still other things, which are worth mentioning. As I said before, instead of like in Mario 3 where you have different Worlds to visit, you have one huge world map. You travel around the map beating castles and areas with your buddy Yoshi freeing his friends and coming closer and closer to bower.
The world is divided up into sections called lands. Each land has 1 castle and usually 1 secret castle. Most of your favourite Mario characters and monsters are back, although some of the strange levels from 3 are gone, partially because the games were being made back to back. However, you'll still get the same feeling you got as a child playing the games every time you pop in the cartridge. Even if you have gone to a totally original and new area you've never seen before, you still have the same ''Mario'' feel that you've had with the others. Now once again I'll get into why Yoshi is awesome.
Yoshi has a wide variety of uses. He can eat fruits using his tongue, which will raise your score. He can also eat shells, mushrooms, and yes, even enemies! If you run into an unwanted koopa, *GULP* he's outta your way.
You can even use him to spit out the shells to shoot at other enemies. Not to mention you can fly, run, and swim with him, who provides suitable protection, and if you give him a special shell he can grow wings and fly by himself! If that wasn't enough you can even breed your own types! In special worlds you can make a yellow, blue, green, or red Yoshi! So, if nothing else, it'll allow you to take one free hit without dying.
Anyway, even if you ignore Yoshi the game still has new things, which you'll love. The old items are there but now have new uses, such as the spinning fireball.
You also now learn new tactics to fight enemies and new strategies. Sure the game isn't terribly hard but you'll find you can catch on to it in a snap. In a day's worth of time you'll feel like you've owned it forever!

As for control, well - take the smooth and great control of the Mario games and add several new buttons and you have the control of Super Mario World.
You still predominately jump on the enemies to get rid of them, but now you can also do a spinning jump which usually just vaporizes them, enter different areas of the level like castles or secrets, run then jump to do a higher jump, or move the camera slightly to one side with the shoulder buttons.
Not to mention if you get a feather now you can access several new options such as dive bombing or floating while in the air. It's almost the perfect control for any 2d platformer.

And talk about extras, there are hidden lands you can access! You can unlock a special star world which not only serves as a cool extra world to explore, you can also use it was a warp station to different zones! With that you could warp to the end of the game in only two hours!
Star Road also serves as a warp to another secret world with extremely hard levels and a breeding ground for Yoshis.
That's right, different coloured Yoshis are accessible (didn't you read the gameplay part?). Along with that there are tons of secret levels and alternate paths around the lands. This allows a non-linear feel to the game and allows you to play through the game many times. You can even change the entire world if you unlock everything!
If you beat the secret world after star road the time changes to fall and all the monsters will have a new look! That's alot of replay value.



Sound 9

Sound quality is far better than the NES beeps. Now they sound much more realistic, and cartoony for that matter.
Music-wise, it's another jump. You have great music, which totally fits the atmosphere, and catchy tunes which you'll find yourself humming. Unlike some other games, which have level tunes that make you want to hang yourself, I've never found myself ever turning the volume down or wishing that the song would change. Koji Kondo did a great job.



Story 5

Your basic Mario story is found here but hey he was the first to use it.
Princess Peach has been kidnapped once again by the evil King Bowser and you most rescue her from his castle. You'll work your way through eight areas each consisting of more then a dozen levels of which some are secret.
Along the way you'll meet Yoshi whose kin have also been locked up by Bowsers children throughout the lands. Defeat the Bowser clan and save Peach. Sure it isn't original but in Mario's case is doesn't have to be but it would have been nice to see more originality past the inclusion of Yoshi.



Overall 9

This is the kind of game that you remember when you're old and balding.
Even now 11 years after it's released it's still on my top 10 favourite games of all time. Not only will the casual gamer love it but also this is the game for hardcore gamers.
Despite some of the innovations Mario 3 had that Super Mario World has lost, this still beats it out. By a small margin, but it is still better.
I implore you to play it if you have missed out on the experience. Trust me, you won't be disappointed, no matter what your expectations are.

Alien Trilogy - PS1, Saturn, PC

"I'm ready, man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State of the badass art! You do NOT wanna fuck with me. Check it out! Hey Ripley, don't worry. Me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you! Check it out! Independently targeting particle beam phalanx. Vwap! Fry half a city with this puppy. We got tactical smart missiles, phase-plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks..."
Hudson... Awesome Character.

The Alien films have always been one of my firm favourites.
The first was a superb Sci-Fi that edged more towards the horror genre. It was tense, gory and frightening and is still a good film more than 30 years on. Aliens were more action oriented and it worked on more levels. It was again tense, but was more exciting and pulsating, and was equal if not better than its predecessor.
Alien 3 was panned, but was still visually stunning, if a little long drawn out.
We'd all like to forget the abysmal Alien: Resurrection, and thankfully it doesn't feature in this game (as this game was released in '96, Resurrection was released in '97).
Alien Trilogy mixes all the excellent points of 3 superb films onto one game.



Graphics 6.5

Alien Trilogy has it's ups and downs with graphics. The 2D sprite enemies are paper-thin, and pixelate terribly up close. The same is true for the wall textures.
But, from a distance, they look good (the Alien Queen is especially frightening). The only other graphical problems with the sprite graphics, is that they can really slow down the game when many are on-screen, and, to compensate for that, some of them blink in and out of existence.
The environments are refreshingly spooky, with steam spiralling out of broken pipes, and the pitch-black corridors are equally eerie.
The corridors are well detailed as well, with pipes, vents and barrels making an appearance. The only gripes with the graphics are the sprite enemies which I've already mentioned.



Sound 9

The designers of Alien Trilogy must've worked very hard in the sound department.
All the gunshots, explosions, Alien noises, and so forth, are all crystal-clear and wonderful to listen to.
Hell, the Pulse Rifle and motion sensor in the game even sound like the ones from the movie! You'll flip over the sound effects, they're that fucking awesome! And, if that weren't enough, the music is great! Some of it creeps you out, some of it keeps you going, some of it's just nice to listen to.
The music definitely plays a big part in the audio experience. If you don't want to buy a first-person shooter, just buy this for the music that's on the CD (yes, all the music tracks from the game can be listened to on your CD player)! Very good sound.



Gameplay 7

The game is divided into three areas, each relating to one of the movies: the LV-426 Colony from Aliens, the Prison from Alien 3, and the Derelict Spaceship from the first Alien movie.
There are 30 missions in Alien Trilogy, although that number is somewhat misleading.
That total includes several bonus levels that you only access by playing well and achieving a high percentage of mission objectives.
They're basically refuelling stations where you have one minute or less to pick up as many extra items and ammo as you can.
Also, every tenth level is a boss battle, so those boards are very short and straightforward.
The rest of the levels are the meat of the game, featuring a nice variety of things to accomplish and plenty of stuff to shoot.
I like the level design for most of the levels in the game, but some of them, the ones from the Derelict Spaceship area in particular, are over a little too quickly.

Since you have missions to fulfil, as well as Aliens to blast, things can get a little hectic. There's nothing worse than barely surviving a battle, only to find out at the end of the level that you failed your mission, and, you have to do it all over again!
Read the mission briefings carefully, and do it right the first time! Other than that, the Aliens can be a total pain, too.
By the end of the game, they are so fast and powerful (and such thin targets), that, if a bunch of them cornered you (even on the easy skill setting), you'd be dead meat. This, coupled with the limited amount of ammo you find, makes this game a tough one to beat, but, not overly frustrating, or anything.

The controls are responsive, but, you can't configure the controls to your liking.
There are four pre-set control schemes, but, there might not be one that suits you. Other annoyances are the fact that you can only scroll forward through your weapons when switching them (thankfully, if you press start, you can select which weapon you want to use from the option menu without having to sift through them one-by-one), as well as having to press two buttons to look up and down (hold the "Look" button, and press Triangle or X). They aren't too problematic, but, they can still be a nuisance. Especially these days, as having to adapt to the classic FPS style of gaming after playing twin-stick for so long is extremely challenging.



Story 3

The story is this. You're Lieutenant Ellen Ripley. Recently, a space colony on planet LV-426, owned by the company you work for, can no longer be contacted.
It might just be a broken transmitter. You have a feeling that it's much worse than that. You and a team of Colonial Marines are sent down to the planet to investigate.
When they enter the colony, your worst fears are confirmed. The Aliens are back! Quickly, your entire landing party of Marines are slaughtered. It's up to you to get in there, and put an end to this nightmare!

Yeah, it basically takes the story of Aliens, puts in elements from Alien and Alien3 and BOOSH! game. But... You're playing this game for the fucking story anyway... You just wanna blast the fuck outta some Xeno's



Overall 6

This game is far from problem-free, with many little annoying bits and pieces that keep it from being truly excellent. But, if you love the Alien movies and DOOM, and wouldn't mind playing a nice little pre-Quake 3D shooter with a great atmosphere, this is the one for you!
It's certainly one of the creepier titles, and, good for a nice fright-filled blastathon. Enjoy!