No new Reviews right now but I have started to make a few Videos showing the boxed Megadrive games I have... this first video shows about 24 Games.. (Videos showing my unboxed games are already up on YouTube).
Some interesting games there, that Classics collection seems a rather random selection, three fairly decent Sega games (Flicky is actually really good) plus the legitimate all time classic Gunstar Heroes for some reason.
Just out of interest do you have any of the following:
Psycho Pinball Mazin Wars Second Samurai Dragons Revenge Rocket Knight Adventures NBA Jam TE Crue Ball
Ironhide wrote:Some interesting games there, that Classics collection seems a rather random selection, three fairly decent Sega games (Flicky is actually really good) plus the legitimate all time classic Gunstar Heroes for some reason.
Just out of interest do you have any of the following:
Psycho Pinball Mazin Wars Second Samurai Dragons Revenge Rocket Knight Adventures NBA Jam TE Crue Ball
I think I have Dragons Revenge, Rocket Knight Adventures and NBA JAM TE ....
I will add my loose carts videos here and I Currently have the second boxed one on the go..... I don't even remember all I own.
kerr9000 wrote:...the boxed Megadrive games I have... this first video shows about 24 Games...
I love your home-made casing for Splatterhouse 2, kerr!
Madden '92... what a fantastic game that was. I was into American Football at that time and the games were comprehensive but accessible; a world away from the loot box and "spend more money" focus of the series nowdays.
You showcased two crackers at the end there, kerr - Zombies (Ate My Neighbors) sure is good; terrific music and fun gameplay. I have the SNES version and a Virtual Console version on my Wii. Dragon's Fury is good, too; it plays a great game of pinball and has an excellent feel. Like you, I have the MD cart and I have the PC Engine version (Devil Crash) as a Wii VC title.
I always enjoy you sharing games from your collection and talking about them!
You showcased two crackers at the end there, kerr - Zombies (Ate My Neighbors) sure is good; terrific music and fun gameplay. I have the SNES version and a Virtual Console version on my Wii. Dragon's Fury is good, too; it plays a great game of pinball and has an excellent feel. Like you, I have the MD cart and I have the PC Engine version (Devil Crash) as a Wii VC title.
I always enjoy you sharing games from your collection and talking about them!
Zombies and Dragons Fury are two of the ones I have played the most out of the two videos I think.
I have a weird memory in that there's all kinds of things I cant remember due to head injury but some games I can tell you exactly when and how I got them and that's a really not useful life skill lol
kerr9000 wrote:...some games I can tell you exactly when and how I got them and that's a really not useful life skill lol
I get you, man! Ask me about how I got my Master System back in 1987 and I can bore people for hours with the details. Plus I can remember walking down to my local high street and getting Boulder Dash Construction Kit (C64) after washing my Dad's car back in 1986. Ask me today to remember just a few controls and attacks in FFXIV and I forget within an hour, though .
Pedz wrote:Ask me about my games and my answer will be 'errrr, at some point from somewhere.
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In more recent times I think the issue is that most of our game purchases are either downloads (a naturally unmemorable process) or through the post after making an online purchase. Most folk don't walk down the road or get on a bus to buy a game; okay, it may not be an exciting journey, but it helps build up a memory. At least there was a chance of looking at the box and maybe even reading through a manual on the bus home!
So I have tried something a little new I made a Review of Toe Jam and Earl with Zero planning recorded live with no takes ...... I have decided not to put it up straight away though I have decided to put it on at the same time as the Queens Funeral..... here is the link it will become available tommorow at 11am
So I have a new review up now SplatterHouse 2... I have put lots of effort in to this one and in keeping with my channels new direction I show my face while I talk about the game.
I am very hard at work on a Streets of Rage 3 YouTube Review... there's a massive script like 1850 words, bags of footage, I have been slowed down by some illness in the family but im just trying to pull it all together.
Here is my review of Streets of Rage 3 and also kind of Bare Knuckle 3 for the Sega Megadrive, its a long one and I have put a lot of effort into this.
For those who prefer written reviews here it is
Streets of Rage 3 is a side-scrolling beat 'em up which was developed by SEGA themselves with help of Yuzo Koshiro’s company Ancient Corp and published by Sega in 1994 for the Sega Megadrive or as our American Cousins would call it the Sega Genesis. It is the third instalment of the Streets of Rage series and the last game in the original trilogy. In fact it would be the last Streets of Rage game for absolutely years before Streets of Rage 4 launched in 2020.
So before I go into too much depth on the game itself I think I ought to tell my own personal tale with Streets of Rage 3 and how it came into my life. I had played absolutely shed loads of the two earlier entries in the franchise mostly with my brother and we owned them both. When the 3rd entry came out though we were both kind of saving up and making decisions about what future Consoles we would be getting so we rented Streets of Rage 3 from a local Video Game rental Store which was actually about a 30 minute walk away on the outskirts of the next town over, the place was called Video City. We had the game over the weekend and played the living heck out of it and I don’t think either of us ever actually purchased it during the Megadrives life span, I was lucky enough years later to pick it up for around the £35 price point from a Video game Store called Playtime which sadly no longer exists but one I will always hold dear because not only did I grab this from there but Also Paper Mario and Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness for good rates before prices went all crazy. Its actually a real shame to me that as life has taken us down slightly different paths I have never got to play through Streets of Rage 4 with my brother because it certainly makes me think of him and the great times we had.
Much like the previous two games, Streets of Rage 3 is a side-scrolling beat 'em up in which either one or two players move through each stage fighting against waves of enemies until they reach and defeat a boss character ending the stage. Players can choose from returning characters Axel, Blaze, and Skate, along with a new cyborg character who is named Dr. Zan. Personally, I think its an absolute shame that neither Max Thunder from Streets of Rage 2 or Adam from the original Streets of Rage returned.
I would complain that Streets of Rage had 3 characters, streets of rage 2 yuped this to 4 selectable characters and that Streets of Rage 3 has gone for 4 again if not for the fact that this game has a few unlockable secret characters, 2 if you’re playing the original European or American Versions and 3 if your playing the Japanese Version and this will not be the only regional difference that I will be discussing.
I want to briefly touch upon the character who was axed from the American and European versions Ash. So Ash was this guy who looked like he was straight out of the Village People he had what a friend has told me is a gay leather daddy style which was legitimately a thing in the 80s and 90s which matches the time period in which this game is set, its not this which is really an issue its. The way the character moves he moves in what can only be described as an ultra camp limp-wristed mincing sort of fashion while performing balley style leaps in high heels, slapping as an attack and giggling in a feminine way… I hate getting a game with removed content because I always think its wrong to give a region or a platform a lesser version of a game but I can see why they did this, the only thing is I imagine that they'll have removed it simply because it portrayed a gay person which might have bothered some religious parents or something and not because it was an obnoxiously offensive portrayal of a gay person. Even in the recent Japanese Rom of this game provided on the Second Mini Megadrive console the section with Ash and the ability to play as him has been removed, but I am kind of against this censorship as I feel its papering over the problem and pretending it never happened. I would sooner it be intact with a disclaimer but that’s just my opinion.
Any Ways getting back to the actual review ……Several tweaks have been made to the basic gameplay of the series in this entry following Streets of Rage 2. Where only Skate was able to run now each character is able to run, which sounds simple but as you can now doing a running attack with anyone it has a pretty cool effect on the games pace. You can also perform a vertical dodge roll to get out of the way quickly and thanks to a new rechargeable meter you have the option once this has filled to perform a Special attack without losing any health. So its plain to see that Sega really tried to build off the back of streets of rage 3.
Its important to realise that Streets of Rage 2 was very much held up as the Gold Standard for this style of game by both fans and by critics, and the things that made Number 2 so well loved included the big detailed sprites, the gameplay and the music. The Music in Streets of Rage 2 I believe can be held up as some of the best 16bit Video game music of all time, its timelessly cool and its just the kind of stuff you can throw on away from the game and still rock out to it. The soundtrack in the second game was influenced by electronic dance music, specifically house, techno, hardcore techno With The soundtrack being considered "revolutionary" and ahead of its time. The soundtrack for this game is not quite so well regarded This game's soundtrack was once again composed by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima, and apparently features influences from Detroit's hard techno scene which was popular in Tokyo nightclubs at the time of the game's development.
For the soundtrack, Koshiro created a new composition method which he called the "Automated Composing System" and he used this to produce "fast-beat techno like jungle music. It was among the most advanced electronic music creation techniques at the time, incorporating heavily randomized sequences. This resulted in sounds generated automatically that, according to Koshiro, "you ordinarily never could imagine on your own." This method was very rare at the time, but has apparently since become very popular among techno and trance music producers. While I believe it was a massive technological step and is a very interesting development I don’t think it led to as strong a soundtrack as the previous game though, it sounds a bit more beepy and electronic and more like traditional game music where as I feel the music in the second instalment had more of a realness to it and I feel this is one of the strong reasons for Streets of Rage 3 being felt as if it is a bit of a step back from the previous high tier entry in the franchise.
I also kind of felt that the story always felt a bit more over complicated and weird than the story in the two previous entries and this is probably down to the fact that the Version we received in Europe was very different to the Original Japanese version. I think it’s the right time now to go over a few regional differences both relating to story and game content.
When the game was localized from the original Japanese version to the English-language release, significant changes were made. The clothing of the three returning heroes Axel, Blaze, and Skate was altered from their original colours seen in the previous Streets of Rage games, which might sound like a small change but I found it instantly jarring. This wasn’t the end of the sprite jiggery pokery though the female enemy characters were also altered to make them wear less-revealing outfits, and the previously mentioned removal of the "Ash" character.
The game almost seemed to be full of pointless stylistic changes voice-effects were also changed, with most noticeably Axel's catchphrase of "Grand Upper" for his special move being replaced with him saying "Bare Knuckle". I think a lot of this messing about kind of led this game to have a slightly knock off style twinge to it, like sega had subcontracted its production out.
Another thing to note is that The Japanese version of the games story opens with a new explosive substance called "Raxine being used in a bomb, a bomb which explodes in the city and kills thousands of people. At the same time, a military general named Ivan Petrov vanishes. It is later discovered that Mr. X orchestrated the general's disappearance and plans to use Raxine to start a global war. The English version, removes all references to Raxine, General Petrov was replaced by the city's Chief of Police, and the plot now involves a scheme to switch major city officials with robot clones in order to take control of the city. It almost feels like they tried to baby the plot down a bit for us and make it a bit more sci fi and a bit less terrible, maybe it’s because of when the game was released after all this was around the time that The Northern Ireland peace process including the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional IRA ceasefire would happen if my memory serves me correctly, so maybe they wanted to cut the talk of bombs out and stuff who knows. I do know that the sort of Semi Sci fi story line just did not feel totally at home in a streets or rage game. The game's overall difficulty was also altered for the English version, with the game's Normal setting apparently being significantly more difficult than even the Japanese version's Hard setting, you also can’t complete the game in easy mode.
I think over the years Streets of Rage 3 has kind of gotten a bad reputation, is it a better game than Streets of Rage 2? No not even near but it is a competent beat em up and I think if you go into it knowing what you are going to get then in all honesty it’s a pretty good game its just not as good as the 2nd and 4th entry in the series and with it commanding quiet a high price online for a legitimate physical copy there are lots of better ways for you to spend your cash if you want some top-quality walk along beat em ups. If I was going to give it a score out of 10 I guess I would settle on around an 8, it’s a disappointing sequel but not a Disappointing game if that makes sense.
I just read through your review; nice work, kerr! I've not played this title - although I have the very good 1 and the super 2 for the Mega Drive - and I've heard differing views on this one over the years. I don't recall the game even being released in Europe although I had kinda moved away from the MD by the time blue box releases arrived.
It kinda sounds like it's probably a good thing that Ash character was removed from the Western releases; it sounds very much like a product of its era and perhaps such portrayals coud - rightly - be decribed as a bit lazy or stereotypical today. I do get your point about considering such work in the perception of the time period, though.
Anyhow, I'm glad that you had fun trying out the action! I gotta say, you're an absolute beast on content production recently... tons of stuff!
jawa_ wrote:I just read through your review; nice work, kerr! I've not played this title - although I have the very good 1 and the super 2 for the Mega Drive - and I've heard differing views on this one over the years. I don't recall the game even being released in Europe although I had kinda moved away from the MD by the time blue box releases arrived.
It kinda sounds like it's probably a good thing that Ash character was removed from the Western releases; it sounds very much like a product of its era and perhaps such portrayals coud - rightly - be decribed as a bit lazy or stereotypical today. I do get your point about considering such work in the perception of the time period, though.
Anyhow, I'm glad that you had fun trying out the action! I gotta say, you're an absolute beast on content production recently... tons of stuff!
It came out pretty late in the day but it did get a European release, I am imagining not in massive numbers, CEX sell loose carts of it for £70, its like £140 boxed (£210 if they deem it perfect)... best to get it on some form of collection.
This Review has sort of taken a very very long time to write, film edit etc , I did a YouTube review of it in 2009 but looking back its awful as my equipment at the time sucked, and I have sort of wanted to redo all of the old videos I did pre 2014 back when I had bad equipment..... ironically some of my bad videos have a lot more views I am guessing not as many people were making content at that stage.
I hope to add more game and horror reviews to the channel even though I have gone crazy with the Geek sampling stuff..... I have footage recorded of World Heros 2 for the Neo Geo so that might be my next game review.
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