Games

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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Prince of Persia (Mega Drive) Review

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Prince of Persia

Yes, I know, I should’ve reviewed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time alongside the film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but although the time mechanics looked fun, I never brought it or even played it. So rather than not review anything at all I thought I’d review the one Prince of Persia game I played, that being the original! Well, the Mega Drive port of the original, anyway. I rented out a couple of times, not because I was good at it, but because the fluid movement and realistic swordplay was cool as hell. Let’s take a look!

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Streets of Rage (Mega Drive) Review

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Streets of Rage

Now, as you may have guessed by the design of the banner for this weekly feature, I LOVE the Streets of Rage series, with II being one of my all-time favourite games, and frankly I’m pretty sure the hype for SoR4’s then-upcoming release is what sparked this idea. So for the next five Sundays let’s take a look at all four official games (and one unofficial game) in the series. The original Streets of Rage is the one that looks the most dated, the sprites being far thinner and less detailed than the ones seen later, but is it still fun to play? Let’s find out!

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WCW Mayhem (PS1) Review

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WCW Mayhem

When I think of WCW games I either think of the great AKI engine games, the really bad Nitro/Thunder duo, or the bizarre game they end on (coming soon!) so WCW Mayhem always falls under the radar, despite being the last “serious” WCW game released, the only traditional wrestling game released by EA and the first wrestling game to have accessible backstage areas. How does this one-off play like? Should it be more fondly remembered? Let’s find out!

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Tekken 7 (PS4) Review

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Tekken 7

So I didn’t know what to review alongside Tekken 2: Kazuya’s Revenge, but given that film turned out to be very… VERY loosely connected to the game series, I guess it didn’t matter! Anyway, this was on sale for a crazy price (probably because the three DLC seasons would cost more than the game did on release… ) so I thought “why not?” I normally buy Tekken games cheap a year or two after release anyway, so here we are! Tekken 7 is a lot of fun, especially the “Treasure Battle” mode, which I got lost in for days. Want to know more? Read on!

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The Simpsons – The Arcade Game Review

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The Simpsons Arcade

Despite me and my brother playing games at home together all the time way back when, I think The Simpsons is the only one I remember us playing together at the Arcades, somewhere in Skegness or some other near-local English beach. It’s also one of the few times I remember a tie-in game being not only good, but great! Factor in the weird fact that this game has never really been ported to home consoles (at least, not for long…) and The Simpsons Arcade Game is a bit of an oddity, but a damn good one. Let’s take a look!

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