Altered Beast

Altered Beast was originally the pack in title that came with the Sega Mega Drive. The graphics and sound are pretty solid for a Mega drive launch title, although they are inferior to the arcade machine. Being an arcade conversion, the plot is pretty thin. You play a dead Greek soldier brought back to life by the god Zeus in a bid to rescue his daughter Athena who has been kidnapped by the evil wizard Neff. The game starts off as a fairly standard side scrolling beat em up. Using your standard punch and kick attacks you fight through the hordes of undead. Killing the blue 2 headed wolves (that look much more like cows or pigs!!) reveals a power up, and collecting 3 of those causes the hero to change into the altered beast of the title. There is a different beast for each level and (with the exception of the bear) they are all good fun to play as and add a welcome change of pace to the game as the game can feel a little slow and heavy whilst controlling the player in human form. The transformation animation still looks pretty cool today. Altered Beast is a fairly short game, although the 2 player simultaneous co-op mode adds a little longevity, although in truth it's unlikely you'll want to play it through more than once as apart from the shape shifting mechanic (which is a great idea and can be a lot of fun) it's a very average game over all. Worth a play through if you're a fan of old school arcade games or just want to see how far video games have come in the last 25 years.