Streets of Rage 4

26 years in the making. I'm a huge Mega Drive fan, its' what I grew up on. Master system might have been my first console but the Mega Drive turned me in to the the person who now spends way too much time playing videogames in his mid 30's that I am today. Streets of rage played a very small part in this. I never owned one but rented them several times and was always terrible at them (unlike Alien storm). To be honest, brawlers have never been one of my favourite genres but 'Foul play' really turned me round when I played that a year or so ago. A good brawler, with the nostalgia addition (something that always works for (see my long Term Sonic obsession)) got me hyped, and I was not let down.

Needless to say I haven't played as a single new character, starting as Blaze and moving on to Axel I was really struggling, it was when I unlocked Adam half way though the game that things really took off and I actually got semi capable at the game. SOR4 is not the most advanced game in this genre by any stretch but it builds a little on the originals, really recreating the spirit of the originals, a simple few button maneuvers, no gimmicks and all the roast chickens you can eat. It fells like a true sequel to the original series.

The game is absolutely beautiful, I was a sceptic when I first saw the trailer (like many others) but it fits in with the series so well, the music is great for the same reasons too. They bring back many of the old enemies while adding a few new and remixing some classics, Electra a particular stand out with a new story of being a total wineo (is that how you spell it?). 

If you like older brawlers this will be right up your street (s' of rage) but don't expect any frills. A love letter to the series and I for one was delighted by it. A must play for the Sega kids out there.

There's not a lot of exciting upcoming games out there it must be said, Saints Row 3 and Destroy all humans remakes could be interesting and the recent Ghosts of Tsuhima gameplay footage has me interested in that game for the first time. Unfortunately I've had the last of us 2 spoiled for me, but that might be a bit of a blessing in surprise. For me Naughty dogs games haven't played that well for a long time, Uncharted certainly being overrated for me and The last of Us 1 certainly being dragged along by a great story, but it seems like the sequel certainly doesn't go the way I want. it could be handled really well, who knows but the length has me worried most of all. 2 disks? really? Uncarted 4 seemed to go on forever and this is supposed to be significantly longer. Anyway, I might get it yet, at this point I'm undecided.

Been playing a lot of these games that are on sale on PSN at the minute to mixed results (why are the loading times for The Crew 2 so insanely long?). Maybe it's time for the Sonic rankings, Just want to play Sonic and the Lost world first as it was during my forgotten surgery year when I first played it so have basically no recollection of it.

Resident Evil 3

Good news (for me), I'm going through some of my missed/ forgotten Sonic games to make my long ranking list. There's no way I'm including every single game mind you just most of them. That's not what I'm here for now though, it's resi 2 remake (obviously). Now, I've noticed I get substantially more views for more niche games (I'm talking 10-20 more time) but I'm doing this for myself to alleviate boredom anyway.

So, the remake of 2 got my 'prestigious' game of the year award (comparisons to that game incoming) for last year so the (worryingly) fast release of the sequel was always gonna be one for me to look forward to. Good news (again), it's good. I like the more sprawling setting with more different environments from the predecessor as well as the slightly speeded up gameplay. Jill and Carlos are both good characters (I would certainly choo choo choose Jill over Leon) that kept me invested in the story.

Most importantly of all in the positives column was that Nemesis only turned up for set pieces, something the game gets a lot of criticism for but I could not disagree more. Mr. X annoyed the hell out of me in Resi 2, not because he scared me (as I said before, 'scary' video games don't scare me anymore despite how much they did when I was a child), but because he was a nause, appearing when you're trying to get around the police station to fetch things, but then up he'd pop, you'd have to go back to a safe room and wait around in there until he went away, then go back to whatever task was being accomplished before, what a time sink. Still, it wasn't as egregious as Amnesia, the most overrated horror game of all time. What was I on about? Right, I was worried before the game that Nemesis would be the same as Mr. X, but for the entire game, hence more annoying but fortunately he was not, only appearing for set pieces and boss fights.

The one very predictable major negative here is that it's extremely similar to the last one. As mentioned, it was only a year since Resi 2 was released, which was probably not enough time to do any more than create the new world and sprites but the game engine is basically the exact same. Obviously this isn't the worst thing possible as I really liked it before, it just seems lazy. It seems likely they sped it up to release it alongside the long in development Resident Evil resistance multiplayer mode (yes I played it and, meh), but they really should have delayed that or put it out as a budget game whilst they finished actually making this properly. Oh well, guess they want to get to the 'money maker' (the inevitable Resi 4 re-re-remake).

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Seems like Resident Evil 8 is next, and I really enjoyed 7, which was, bizarrely (given I've been playing videogames for about 30 years now) my introduction to the series (as I said, the original trilogy at time of release scared me too much). Anyway, looking forwards to it.

Streets of Rage 4 is out now! and I like it a lot. that's next.


P.s. I would take my own screen shots but that seems like a ridiculously small thing to buy a capture card for.