Streets of Rage 4 - Review

I have been so excited for Streets Of Rage 4 to be released. I wanted a physical copy so made sure to order it from Limited Run Games. It has been over a quarter of a century since Streets of Rage 3 was released, and the series was one of my favourites growing up. I expected it would be weird playing it on the PlayStation 4 as previously I had only played it on the Mega Drive. It finally arrived last week and I could not be more eager to play a game.


In the nineties when I lived in London I went to Beanos in Croydon (long since closed) with my best friend at the time Dave. Beanos was a great music shop which managed to be small and large at the same time, it was like a mini-tower. On the top floor, there was a large TV that played movies and a couch. They sold American chocolate and made fresh milkshakes and malts. This was the first time I tried Hershey's Cookies N Creme, it was amazing. All these years on when I have one I still have fond memories and still tastes good. While playing Streets of Rage 4 I found myself asking was it just nostalgia or was it still tasty?

Story


27 years ago Mr X was finally defeated once and for all by Axel, Blaze, and the gang. The city experienced peace once more until a new syndicate took control, this time led by the children of Mr X -  Mr and Ms Y. Axel and the gang must take to the streets and take down these new powerful foes. This time sees the return of characters like Adam and Max, along with the introduction of new characters like Cherry (Adam's daughter) and Floyd - a beefcake with bionic arms.


Overall the story is pretty straight forward and simple with a few 'ooooo' moments. I really loved the story especially the fact they played homage to the previous games.

Visuals


When I first watched the trailers for Streets of Rage 4 I was unsure about the art style. I had gotten so used to the 16-bit graphics from the Mega Drive it was hard to process this new art style initially. Quickly that faded, I really like the new look, it was fresh but also had an old school feel. The levels are so vibrant and colourful, the characters look new but also so familiar. Honestly, I could not have asked for more.  Even the older bulky looking Axel looked perfect and made sense, I think the only character that did not really age was Blaze. Even the animation for attacks look fantastic, just look at the images above and below. One of my favourite looking levels was one where you are in a glass elevator which is really intense, along with being on top of a train watching the city go by.


Overall I have zip/zero to complain about, the game looks great and is a great addition to the series.



Music


I cannot overstate this but I loved the Streets of Rage soundtracks for the first three games. Kuzo Koshiro created the sound for them and it as important as the gameplay itself. He has helped create the sound for many other games including Sega's Revenge of Shinobi (another fantastic soundtrack and game).  I was excited to hear he would be returning to work on Streets of Rage 4, this time he brought some friends: Olivier Deriviere, Groundislava, XL Middleton, Keiji Yamagishi, Harumi Fujita, Mothiro Kawashima, Yoko Shimomura, Scattle, Yuro Koshira, Das Mortel and H-Pi.


The soundtrack is over an hour long and features many great tracks, in fact so many I stopped writing them down. If I had a gun to my head and could only pick five tracks they would be; The Streets, They're Back, Mr Y, Nora, Barbon, and Double Divas. Overall a great soundtrack, and while I don't like it as much as the others once I have listened to it for over a hundred hours like the others that might change.

Gameplay


The gameplay is classic side-scrolling beat em' up action, that anyone who played the previous games will be familiar with. There are however a few changes that add a new dynamic and a new level of replayability. As always there are a number of different difficulty levels from easy to mania. There is a boss challenge mode, level select mode, and a versus mode. This time you can play up to 4-players in Co-Op which is really neat. The more you play the more you can unlock, everything from the soundtrack to more characters including some of the classic look characters and for the first time you can play as Shiva, Mr X's right-hand man.


The fighting is a lot of fun, the animations and in general, the fighting is really smooth. Special moves can eat your health but if you knock out an enemy quick enough you can recoup the loss. Similar to previous games each character have their own strengths and weakness along with special moves. There a lot more weapons this time and it seems the enemies are as free to use them as you are.


There are eleven stages in the game which is the most any game in the series has featured to date. Each of them has a very different look and feel along with more than a few hazards that can be used to your advantage. Each stage has its own boss and sometimes two, this can be extremely challenging as you only have two lives per round but you can get more if you are willing to reduce your score.


Overall the gameplay is fast and tons of fun and cannot recommend it enough!




Final Thoughts


So, after just a few shorts hours how did I feel? Like I wanted to play the game over and over again. The story was fun and a nod to its predecessors. The visuals managed to be both new and retro at the same, great soundtrack (even though it not my favourite..yet). The gameplay is fun and the new modes give it a lot of replaybility. This one gets a smooth 5 out 5

Mother Russia Bleeds - Review

I have nearly reached the end of the PC games I wanted to play this year - while I have had fun I hear my consoles calling out to me and am looking forward to playing a number of games on them including a few titles being released this month.  The second last game that I wanted to play on PC this year was Mother Russia Bleeds.  It has an intriguing name and I loved the idea of playing an old school beat 'em up game again.


I love chocolate and I love Turkish delight - they are both very different but both equally as tasty.  Naturally you are thinking 'he must really like Fry's Turkish Delight', but you would be wrong, very wrong.  Cheap thinly layer chocolate cover a jelly like material that is barely fit for human consumption.   Poor ingredients are part of the problem but maybe it's something else as well.  It's like a combined washing machine and dryer - sure it seems like a good idea but it is never as good as a separate washer and dryer, maybe some things should not be combined.  Playing Mother Russia Bleeds I found myself asking should two things be combined or are they better left separate?

Story

The game is set in an alternate 1980's USSR. You start off in a gypsy camp doing a little street fighting. You are minding your own business when a bunch of guys come in and take you away by force.  You wake up to find you have been imprisoned & injected with a drug called Nekro, which makes you super strong, but side effects may include: vomiting, headaches, nightmare visions and addiction.  Your mission: find out who did this to you and why. Oh and if you have time help start a revolution.  There are four characters to choose from; Sergei, Boris, Ivan, Natasha.  Their stories and backgrounds are all fairly interchangeable but what sets them aside is their fighting ability.  Sergei is balanced, Boris is, well insane, Ivan is tough as nails & Natasha is really fast. 

Most beat 'em games have a simple story, which is fine because it would only detract from the gameplay itself.   The issue with Mother Russia Bleeds is that it makes more of a deal out of the story than it should, and dialogue interrupts gameplay on more than a few occasions & stops the flow of things. Now this would be fine if the story was interesting, which it isn't, and it just comes off feeling clunky and unnecessary. 

Visuals

The game goes for a pixelated 2D look - think Hotline Miami but instead of a top down look it is a side scroller.   The game is full of trippy drug fueled images, blood, gore and junkies - it is grim throughout and the pixelated look gives it a harsh edge that would unlikely be achieved by a more polished art style.  There are some really stand out visual aspects including: 

• The train mission where you start the journey during the day inside and finishes with you fighting on the roof under the moonlight which looks really cool
• The rain effect on the final mission looks great as it hits off and runs down the windows and is perfect for an endgame area
• The DJ in the Underground Concert area looks like he is having fun, the music is beating so loudly the bottles of vodka around him are shaking which made me smile

Music

The music used in the game borrows from a few different styles including; industrial, Soviet classical & electronic.  The score is composed by French synthwave project Fixions who has produced multiple albums including; Migration 2019, Euphorion, Genocity, Invisible & Black Chrome Riot.

The score runs at little over 90 minutes and contains a number of good pieces of music but as a whole I found it to be a little underwhelming.  My favorite tracks included; 'Mother Russia Bleeds', 'Maniac', 'Black Racers', 'Summoning The Mire' and 'Killing Pool'.

Gameplay

Onto the borscht.  What to tackle first?  The combat has your classic punch, kick and throw mechanics which for the most part work well, though disappointingly there is no option to block.  What really sets Mother Russia Bleeds apart from other beat 'em ups are the drugs you can take, each offering different abilities.  If you want a chance to try them all you will have to  reach at least wave 10 in arena mode before unlocking them.  There are some fun weapons including swords, pipes and bottles which can be broken and shoved into enemies throats.  The biggest negative combat-wise is the guns - while they are very sparse in early levels, the later levels are filled with them & I feel it really takes away from the beat 'em element. 

There are definitely some unusual enemies in the game, most notably gimps, a bear in a spiked mask, a busker and syringe spiders.  The game borrows from games like Street of Rage, Double Dragon and Fatal Fury, though one thing they did not borrow was the health bars for enemies which I feel would have been really good.

The difficulty level starts balanced and then goes out of control about 70% of the way through the game. The number of enemies becomes crazy and many of them have guns which ends up making it feel poorly balanced and unfair.  I had originally hoped there may be elements used in the game from more modern beat 'em up style games, for example Dead to Rights Retribution.  While I had some fun early, on by the end of it I was bored and wished I had just played one of the old classics.

Final Thoughts

So after 5 hours how did I feel?  Like maybe downloading and the playing the game was not my best idea.  While there were some interesting elements it just didn't pull together well at all and I am glad my time with it is over.  I try not to be too harsh when rating games but there was just so little to enjoy I am going to give this one 2 out of 5.

A Little Side Tracking

Today I was going to start talking about my next adventure in gaming but I am not going to do that.
Instead I am going to tell you about a present I bought for myself & forgot to listen to until about an hour ago!


I learnt of a company called Data Discs some months back on a couple of forums & they were also featured on IGN.  The company is printing & remastering some awesome game soundtracks on vinyl. The one I bought for myself was Streets of Rage by Yuzo Koshiro in blood spatter red.

It is an epic soundtrack beautifully remastered with some great cover art & included inside are two lithographic prints (one of which I will be framing), along with 5 character cards.  To the best of my knowledge they did not forget a single track from the original game.  One thing I found very cool is at the end of Side B if you let it run to the end it will play the sound effect of collecting food from the game. I know a few people that when they think of the game they hear that noise before anything else.

Listening to the soundtrack pulled me straight back into my childhood & also makes me wonder if they will ever make Streets of Rage 4. If you have the money I highly recommend the purchase or at the very least go to the site & listen to some of the sample tracks there.

They also have the soundtracks of Shenmue, Shinobi 3 & Super Hang On available now.


Must...buy them...all...Credit Card melting!

In The Beginning There Was Pong!

Let me start by saying I love Video Games!  To date I have played well in excess of 600 Video Games which have come in all shapes & sizes.  Growing up I was lucky enough to have a cool Dad who owned Pong (also known as Home Pong).  

While Pong was by no means the first video game ever made it was arguably the first one to become a household name. It also brought to attention to a yet unexplored territory that we know today as the Games industry.

The first console my parents bought me was the Sega Master System 2. It came with Alex the Kidd in Miracle World built into it.  Alex had a powerful fist he used to do everything from killing enemies, breaking blocks & of course playing jan-ken-pon (rock, paper, scissors).  The idea was simple battle through a number of levels & save your long lost brother Prince Egle.  Who is being held by the evil Janken the Great who has taken over the peaceful lands of Radaxian. A brilliant & challenging game!

Unlike a lot of kids my first introduction to Sonic the Hedgehog was on the Master System not the Mega Drive.  The game felt very different to the Mega Drive version & in some ways tougher (although to be fair it is a long time since I played it so in retrospect maybe it was just as tough).  Sonic was & is still a brilliant character; if you ignore some of the bad games & some of his not so cool friends - Vector the Crocodile? When you are trying that hard it's not cool yo!

I am just going to through out a few titles I really enjoyed before moving on; Double Dragon (played this alot with my Dad),Operation Wolf, Asterix, Bubble Bobble, Ghostbusters, Action Fighter & of course Paperboy!

Next up the Sega Mega Drive - 2! I love this console, so many great games, so many hours spent burning my eyes out my head staring at the screen!  

Where to begin.......I guess Streets of Rage!  You get to pick from three awesome characters; Axel, Blaze & Adam - all with there own set of skills.  The city has been taken over by Mr X & his Syndicate.  Unwilling to bend over & take it any more these ex-police officers take to the streets & clean up the city.  Of course it going to be tough as the city is littered with random building supplies, there are payphones which literally fall apart with the smallest touch & empty barrels of oil containing gold & collectible figures inside them - which strangely look like our hero's. To make things worse there are apples & turkeys left out everywhere which as we all know causes ants!  Some of the local entertainers have lost their shit! We have guys who are supposed to just juggle but now they throw axes & fire.  We have Dominatrix's roaming the streets whipping you any time they see you (there is a time & a place for this) & these punks who slide tackle you like your a damn ball! 

If you play only one game on this console then it has to be Streets of Rage I love the whole series & if you get the chance to play the Japanese version (Bare Knuckle) I highly recommend it.

Outside of that there are gems like; Sonic & Knuckles which was awesome for many reasons. One of the best reasons is that it had a slot in the top of the cartridge which allowed space for another Sonic Game to be added to it.  This then would completely change the game (check it out below).

Another great game was Micro Machines 2: Tournament Edition. You have 4 friends that want to play & you don't have the 4 player adapter - what will you do?  No need to worry Codemasters made it a J-Cart giving you two additional ports on the game itself.  A fun game, brilliant tracks, crazy characters & it even came with Game Invites to give to your friends & Certificates for the Winners.

I want to mention some other games that were just awesome as well before moving on: Stryder, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Mortal Kombat 3, ESwat, Desert Strike, Street Fighter 2, Bubba N' Stix, Earthworm Jim,  Aladdin, Tiny Toons Adventure: Busters Hidden Treasure. A big shout out to Andrea Agassi Tennis- why?  I am not a tennis fan - hell I am not a sports fan at all but this game is what got me & my dad playing Video Games together & I am thankful for it.