Aww yeah. The good old days.

User Rating: 7.8 | Bare Knuckle: Ikari no Tekken GEN
Forget Shenmue. You want to knock some thugs, get some revenge, and earn back your neighborhood? Fire up Streets of Rage and play that again. This game was so cool, it felt good just listening to its name roll off your tongue. Like Golden Axe before it, it was a solid sidescrolling brawler. Like Golden Axe, it had three characters to choose from, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Like Golden Axe, Streets of Rage captured the arcade feeling wonderfully. But Streets of Rage did something that Golden Axe didn't. For some reason, the three characters seemed to defy their simple cliches and standard pixels and came to life. They did things you could identify with. Back then, themes like saying no to drugs and resisting gangs were common buzzwords, so something like Streets of Rage fit right in. Streets of Rage captured that chilling feeling of barren, windswept streets that had been taken over by thugs and the harrowing plight of young but courageous fighters determined to get some justice. Plus it was also cool that one of the characters was an African American and he was no stereotype. And what was your reward after fighting through countless ugly thugs? You get to face off against a towering guy in a good looking suit who suddenly whips out a machine gun and starts shooting up the place. Planting that final sidekick in his gut and watching his reign of terror come to an end in slow motion was as cool as it got. Forget all those other games with "bullet time" and the slow motion finish. Streets of Rage was the first to make it cool. The game itself was like a bad made-for-tv movie. But you know what? It still worked. Streets of Rage became a household name. Few other games like it would be its equal(Final Fight). Fewer still would surpass it(Guardian Heroes). And no 3D brawler would ever beat it.