Tag Archives: streets of rage

The Android's Distracted Boss (Casual/Flash), The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

I’m terribly sorry for the impending rant, but…

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The front of this blog was, until I posted this, a very pleasant post. It was an enthusiastic post by a long-time gamer about one of her very favorite games ever. It heartens me when someone enthuses so about something they love, doubly so when it’s in a medium I cherish.

And that is why it hurts so much to post this, because there are ugly, ugly things afoot and I’m just not able to stand them anymore.

Let me begin with a small sample of events:

XCOM

That’s enough by itself really, and I’ll write at length about why it does matter that they’re using the X-Com name for something that is entire not X-Com at another point, but suffice it to say, FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU-

Age of Empires Online

I’m not opposed to online/casual games in principle, but on the other hand, you can pay a full $19.99 USD for a single civilization pack. OR you can pay $99.99 (Yes, one shiny cent shy of a Ben Franklin) for everything. Oh no wait, I’m sorry – everything for now. That’s just the “season 1 pass”. It lasts for the next six months. Ninety nine dollars for six months of a game. And they say MMOs are bad value!

Brian Reynolds now works for Zynga – founded by a man who wanted to be able to buy victory because he sucks at games – and defends the most excruciatingly casual, pay-to-win games imaginable.

Many companies (I’m looking at Namco real close right now because of their SCIV shenanigans) put DLC on the damn disc. Even Paradox is making DLC now, though at least that’s all genuinely optional stuff. How long until their graphical DLC stomps on player-made graphics mods though?

DLC in itself can be okay. Look at what Rockstar make: The Ballad of Gay Tony, The Lost and Damned, and Undead Nightmare are all absolutely superb. But they’re all pretty much expansion packs in their own right. The increasing nickel-and-diming of players for stuff that is either on the disc, should have been in in the first place, or would once have come free in a patch (Remember those? When patches had stuff in them?) is just disgusting. I get going where the money is, but there’s still plenty of money to be made on those of us who actually play videogames; We’re the ones who still buy tons of games in the recession, we’re the ones who still buy Nintendo consoles even after they made the GameCube, and we’re the ones who are going to invest serious time and money into gaming.

In short,

Mister Adequate has evolved into The Incredible Hulk

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's POG Collection (Retro)

Streets of Rage Remake

Something I think should be spread around as far and wide as possible.

Is it just me or does that one dude with the bandana standing in front of Max look like Diego from Vandal Hearts?

The long-running Streets of Rage Remake project has reached v5.0, the final release. It is basically a massive amalgamation of everything SoR, which for my money was one of the best game series back on the Mega Drive/Genesis.

I was messing around with it some yesterday and it is very good. It remains faithful whilst making a ton of additions and refinements. As far as I’ve heard SEGA are cool with this, which is very admirable of them. Too many companies these days are too ready to step on fan projects.

Get it here!

It’s an admirable effort, and quite remarkable in scope. I’m a big fan of fan projects, be they things like this, mods, whatever. I think they’re great for the players, and they’re also a great way for the people involved to get experience of working in a team to put something out. So if you liked Streets of Rage back in the day, or if you’ve never played it at all, go and give it a looksee!

EDIT: Apparently, SEGA and Bombergames have had some kind of disagreement over this after all. The download has been pulled from the official site.