Streets of Rage Remake

Streets of Rage Remake is an epic blast. Worth 25 bucks on a console.

Back in the 16-bit era of gaming the Brawler genre reached an all-time high. Spurred on my genre starters such as River City Ransom and Double Dragon, Brawlers put the player in the task of defeating hundreds of baddies--one fist at a time. Brawlers are mostly a mix between fighting games and adventure games, the idea that you use your fisticuffs and a few special abilities to blast your way through an almost infinite number of bad guys, preferably with friends.

Although Brawlers have made a comback with games like Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim VS The World: The Video Game (yes, that's the title), the 16-bit battle between the SNES and the Sega Genesis saw a massive number of Brawlers ship. Brawlers were excellent for burning away the hours, and a blast to play with more then one person. Games like Battletoads and Turtles in Time captivated young and old with their frantic co-op gameplay.


One classic series from the Sega Genesis was known as Streets of Rage. Unfortunately after three titles in the Streets of Rage series, the Brawler genre decided to dry up overnight, and the series was put on indefinate hold. But if Sega's fans have proven anything, it is that they are NOT patient.    Without an official release to tide them over, they decided  to make their own. Eight years later, Streets of Rage Remake has finally had it's official release, and it's worth every bit of time you'll give it.

Special Moves are key to survival even on normal difficulty

Once again, this game is a Brawler, so it treads the familiar territory you'd expect. Playing as one of the games six default characters (or one of the unlockable characters), you and a friend battle your way through stage after stage trying to track down and defeat the elusive (and powerful) crime lord Mr. X. There are literally dozens of stages to battle through, some from the older games, some brand new, and it's very possible to still be finding new things on your fourth or fifth playthrough.

The game stays fresh with a whole host of unlockables to be purchased from the games shop as well, everything from new characters, new game modes, cheats, to an editor that will let you build their own stages. There is an AI co-op mode for those of you without an extra gamepad, and the game has several pages of options screens for the true SoR enthusiest. If you liked the SoR2 hit-detection over the SoR3 detection (crud, if you even know what that means), you can change it.

Spend your hard earned cash on dozens of unlockables, And yes, this game is very 80s

While I can give you a link to the games development page (Bomber Games) the one thing I can't provide is a solid link to the download itself, although it may still be on Bomber Games website. See, for the eight years that Bomber Games was working on SoR Remake they had Sega's blessing. Then two days after they released the final version, Sega asked them to take it down. Ouch. However, I'm pretty sure if you did some careful searching for SoR Remake Version 5 you'd be able to find a copy, since it made its way around the internet pretty dang fast.

After a successful playthrough you'll be treated to a slideshow of your victories

SoR Remake is the kind of title that I'd expect to have paid money for, would pay money for if it wasn't free. It may have it's weak points (there are occasional glitches, and the vehicle levels cease to be amusing after a single playthrough), but its far overshadowed by the amount of polish, content and fun the game gives. For a game that had exactly zero impact on my wallet, it's been played a lot more in the past week then most of the $50 games sitting on my shelf.

One last note. Since its a free game, Streets of Rage Remake has no official rating, but given the content, I'd plant this one firmly in the Teen category. So its around the equivalent of a light PG-13 movie in terms of content.

Bomber Game's website is here.

I hope you can find a copy...