Streets of Rage

Game review

A criminal syndicate began to terrorize the once peaceful city. Looting and violence are the order of the day. The police are passive and just watch the increasing crime. Three police officers, Adam, Axel and Blaze, therefore decide to leave the ranks of corrupt law enforcement officers. To clean the city from the criminal gang, they create a special attack squad. Finally, they go to the streets to clean up and eliminate all the criminals who are terrorizing the city. Your only task in the game is to keep moving forward and defeat everyone who stands in your way. 

Gameplay is straightforward and simple. Three buttons are used, one to jump, other to attack and another to perform a range attack from a support police car. Each character has a limited set of moves that include punching and kicking or performing a back attack (if in the open), two grapple moves (depending if holding the opponent in front or by the back), a flying attack, and if playing with another player two additional tag attacks, and different abilities: Adam is slow, but a good jumper and a hard hitter, Axel fast and also a hard hitter, but a lousy jumper and Blaze fast and a good jumper, but weak hitter.

Levels are in typical arcade side-scroller fashion: move from left to right (with two exceptions), clearing screens from enemies one after another as fast as possible while avoid taking damage with a boss in the end. Some levels feature "death drops" where the player must avoid falling, while throwing enemies there at the same time, including a typical elevator level. Several items are scattered on the ground, from melee weapons and bonus points (and lives or additional police cars) to apples and turkeys (to restore health).

Streets of Rage is a classic arcade beater that was originally released on the Sega Mega Drive game console back in 1991. The game was later ported to other platforms, but often contained minor changes compared to the original version.