Trouble’s broken out on the streets! There’s panic at City Hall! The SF team brush up their martial arts and head into the mayhem!

An evil maniac, Mr Big, has taken control of the city. Politicians and cops have been corrupted and it’s up to you to take on the bad lads as best you can. You choose between two characters, Axel Stone, a tough cop who’s not that fast but packs a lethal punch, and Blaze Field, a lightning-fast female with a mean kick. Once you’ve decided who you want to be, it’s into the action.

Each character can perform flying kicks, deadly throws and back-breaking somersaults. There are eight levels of fist-flying action and end-of-level baddies to duff in. A two-player option’s available via the datalink socket. Get ragin’!

Mat says... ‘A GOOD IDEA BUT DOESN’T SEEM TO WORK!’

Streets Of Rage on the MD is probably the best fighting game available for the machine. The large characters, arcade-quality graphics and sound make it fun to play and tough to crack.

And what’s the GG version like? Good question! Unfortunately, Streets Of Rage doesn’t translate that well to a handheld machine.

For a start, the figures are too small. This leads to a lot of confusion, especially during manic fight scenes! As you can’t tell who’s who, you tend to get your ass kicked a lot! Not nice for you — or your bottom!

With only two buttons, the range of moves is limited. The best move is to grab the bad guy, flip over his head then slam him into the floor (‘Make em eat concrete!’ as me old mum used to say!).

With loads of continues, you might think it’d be a doddle. Think again! Your enemies are constantly wiping the floor with you, giving little time to recover!

The programmers have tried to squeeze the MD version onto the GG, and had to leave out the squad car ‘smart bomb’ and reduce the graphics. If this doesn’t bother you, stick with it, otherwise try and get your hands on the MD version to experience the real thing!

MAT 81 %

Paul cautions... ‘NOT BAD!’

Streets Of Rage on the Game Gear? Great! My fave beat-em-up appears on my fave handheld! Great title screen, nice intro and... Oh. It’s not like the Mega Drive version. There’s no special weapon and few large sprites. The graphics are a bit fuzzy and ill-defined (there there, don’t cry!).

They’ve tried to fit the MD version on a GG. What a shame; if they’d just taken the best parts from the original this would be a corker. Sadly, it’s only just above average.

What’s wrong? Only having two buttons for all your moves, lack of fight variation and numerous other touches that made the original a classic.

Overall, not bad — but not the best.

PAUL 79%

SF Rating

Presentation

79% - Nice intro, options menu, two-player game with Gear-to-Gear link

Visuals

77% - Good in places but some poorly defined baddies spoil it in others

Sonics

83% - Adequate efforts and good tunes throughout

Playability

76% - Plenty of gratuitous violence but controls are confusing at times

Lastability

79% - Challenging to complete but can become repetitive

81%

Disappointing compared to the MD but a great mash n’ bash in its own right

Producer

Sega

MD

Out

MS

Jan ‘93

Memory

256K

Players

1-2

Price

£TBA

Rating

81

Reviewer

Sega Force magazine

Region

UK

Scans

Sega Force - Issue 12

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