Games

The King of Dragons (Arcade) Review

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After five weeks of raging on the streets we’re back to CAPCOM and back to medieval fantasy, so couldn’t be any more different if it tried! The King of Dragons is an odd one because it mixes an RPG levelling up system to the mix as well as classes having different strengths and weaknesses, so we’re going full on Dungeons and Dragons. Let’s take a look if this mix works, and whether it’s better than the extremely similar game “Knights of the Round” CAPCOM themselves released a few months later… (coming next week!)

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Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS. Maxiboost ON (PS4) Review

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This is the third Extreme VS. game I’ve played (fourth if you include the sadly limited PS4 reboot attempt from a couple of years ago) but the first that I brought without importing from Asia due to it getting an official English release (sadly digital only, but hey-ho) It’s actually a direct port of the Arcade game, a new game (“Gundam Extreme VS. 2”) having made this one old hat in the actual Arcades themselves. So what’s the home port like? Is there much in it for a single player? Could they have created a more Japanese sounding title?! Let’s find out!

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Streets of Rage 4 (PS4) Review

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After over two decades, it finally happened: Streets of Rage 4 was announced, and I was so excited, especially as it was actually 2D and not some awful 2.5D cheap bollocks like a lot of revivals of classic games tend to be. Still, I lowered my expectations and intentionally didn’t read up about it so as to make the first playthough as fun as possible and sure enough: I was blown away. The art style, the super-smooth animations, the hard-hitting combos and funny references to the original trilogy all combine to create a genuinely amazing time for me personally. Want to hear more, like how it holds up after multiple playthroughs? Read on!

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Dead Rising 2 / Off The Record (XBOX 360) Review

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Dead Rising 2 was a pleasant surprise to me. Unlike the sequel film, the sequel game took what worked in the original and built on it while improving or getting rid of the things that didn’t. Sounds obvious, but not all sequels actually manage to do this! I played quite a bit of DR2, and then I brought the spin-off non-canon retelling titled “Off the Record”, which is why I’m including it here. Beyond the retold story and a few small addition, they’re essentially the same, so they’d be little point in doing separate reviews… Anyway, let’s have a look!

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Streets of Rage Remake (PC) Review

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Streets of Rage Remake

So the late 90s and 2000s were devoid of new Streets of Rage. The franchise was officially dead in Sega’s eyes, not even being included in Sega All-Stars Racing… Luckily for us a bunch of fans got together in 2011 and released an extremely polished and professionally made sequel / remake titled “Streets of Rage: Remake”. Featuring all levels and enemies from all three games, plus a bunch of new stuff, it was a dream to play through, even after Sega’s legal team shut it down (*grumble, grumble*) The question is, now we have an official sequel, what’s this like to return to? Let’s find out!

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Dead Rising (XBOX 360) Review

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Dead Rising

The original Dead Rising was one of those games that looked amazing: free-roaming zombie outbreak in a mall with loads of weapons, including stupid comedic ones? Yes please! Sadly, upon playing it, the tight time limit and poor companion AI really let it down… At least by memory, what about now?! Has this somehow changed? I am replaying it because of the film I’m reviewing alongside it, or am I doing it because I truly believe something may have changed in the past decade or so? … Yeah. Well, maybe it’s not as bad as I remember? Let’s find out!

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Streets of Rage 3 (Mega Drive) Review

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Streets of Rage 3

About 7-10 years ago this was the final entry in the franchise, then Streets of Rage Remake was released by fans, but 3 was still the last official entry, so it’s odd to talk about this game in the middle of looking at the franchise rather than the end! SOR3 never got anywhere near as much play from me as II did, which was odd at the time because I couldn’t place why… It wasn’t until the advent of the internet and ROMs that I found out the US/PAL version of 3 was many times harder than even the Japanese version’s hard mode, which probably explains it! So me and my friend played through the JPN version here, and have done since the ROM days, a version which includes a controversial sub boss to boot! So let’s take a look at the old “end of the trilogy”, shall we?

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WWF WrestleMania 2000 (N64) Review

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WWF WrestleMania 2000

Yay! Another AKI game, and one with the WWF (at the time) license no less! I remember absolutely going crazy at the announcement that THQ and AKI had dropped the WCW license and were now working for their competition, and I still have a very vivid memory (which makes sense as I was 15 at the time, so it’s not like I was a child or anything) of seeing Chris Jericho was in this game, even though he’d only jumped ship recently, and just freaking out. So was the marriage of the AKI engine and WWF during the “just starting to get away from the super-immature attitude era and heading to the well written attitude era” a winner? … Do you even have to ask?!

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Street Fighter Alpha 3 (PS1) Review

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Street Fighter Alpha 3

We’ve reached something of a milestone here, as this is the last fighting game I’ll be reviewing as part of this marathon, and the final of three Street Fighter games to boot. After reviewing the original with the first film, and Super SFII with the second film, I thought I’d review my favourite Street Fighter game alongside “Assassin’s Fist”, so I went with Alpha 3, the final of the prequels to SFII and a PS1 game I became very addicted too for a while. Let’s take a look!

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Streets of Rage II (Mega Drive) Review

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Streets of Rage II

So, here we go. If I were to make a “Top X favourite games of all time” list, this would easily be in the top 5, if not near the very top (I have no idea what would be at the top, that would require a lot of thought…) The gameplay, the graphics, the music, the look… everything about this game was amazing to me back when it came out, and it’s still every bit as good in 2020. Want to hear me gushing about the game more? Read on!

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