Format: Sega Mega Drive
Year: 1992
Another rare game in my long list of memories that include my brother, Sam, is Streets of Rage 2. It was the best in a trilogy of side scrolling beat-em-ups on the Sega Mega Drive. (Genesis in America). We would always play as the same 2 characters: I was Axel, and my brother would be Skate. He loved the agility and bombastic acrobatics that the tiny skater dude could pull off. Many of the boss fights would end with Sam leaping onto their necks and pummelling them in the back of the head. I liked Axel’s swinging flaming punch, and his multi-hit special combo. It’s a simple but satisfying game built around stylised hand to hand violence.
We played it to death and memorised each and every level. There’s a hidden 1up tucked inside the mist at the bottom of the screen just after you kill the floating chain monster head in the haunted house level… The huge wrestler bosses are pretty much immune to grab moves – if you touch them for much longer than a second, they will break out of it with devastating force. And pipes are just badass. They’re the best weapon in the game and must never be missed. If you’re already holding one, make sure you don’t accidentally juggle it with another weapon on the ground and use up all of its uses. Brotherly arguments would ensue if you wasted both weapons…
I remember thinking nothing of the absurdity that eating apples out of bins boosted your health, and a garbage roast turkey was a special treat that would completely refill one’s HP meter. Every smashable object in the game yielded either edible treats or sacks of money and even gold bars, so my brother and I would just punch everything in sight and then occasionally get angry at each other for stealing the extra turkey during a tough boss fight…ah, brothers, eh?
But in the end, we triumphed. Streets of Rage 2 might actually be the first game I ever completed. I remember it feeling like such a momentous achievement when we finally defeated Mr X or whatever his name is, the big bad boss at the end of the final level. Back then, it felt like a really long game, but when I replayed it with my friend Robbie on the 360 a few years ago, I was surprised to find it only takes about 30 minutes to play through, assuming you both know what you’re doing. It may be shorter than I remember, but it’s still totally satisfying to play. Beating up hordes of thugs, punks and giant fat fire-breathing baby men doesn’t get old, apparently.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
It’s safe to say that Fumito Ueda’s third game was one of my most anticipated titles of the previous generation. Announced in 2009, I eagerly watched every gameplay trailer and read up every snippet of information I could. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus remain two of my most beloved games, and I found the idea of another game by the same studio a mouth-watering temptation. A multitude of delays and long periods of silence from both Sony and the developers led many to believe it would never see the light of day, not to mention the troubling news that Ueda himself had left the project due to creative differences with Sony. The game lingered in development hell for several years and its fate was uncertain. Ueda and his team remained with the project as consultants and the game eventually had a release date set for December 2016. My excitement rekindled and I wondered how it could ever live upto 7 years of anticipation. So, was it worth the wait?
Beyond: Two Souls is a paranormal action thriller starring Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. You’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a Hollywood film based on that description, but it is in fact the latest game from Quantic Dream, the studio behind the equally cinematic Heavy Rain. It’s tempting to compare the two, but Beyond is a different experience, opting to tell a linear story with fewer choices and consequences. As a big fan of Heavy Rain’s dynamic storytelling approach, I expected to be disappointed but as soon as I started playing I realised what writer and director David Cage was trying to achieve and felt satisfied to go along for the ride. Because what a ride it is…
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
Copyright © 2010 - 2026
Site designed and hosted by Tekamutt Media