A Small Pastime

I have lately gotten very interested in playing the Sega Genesis game "Streets Of Rage 2'. It is a game I had played when I was in perhaps third grade. It was an exceptionally popular game at the time, and it admittedly looks rather quaint now. It's what you call a "side scroller". You are one of four characters who are purportedly fighting to recover a friend kidnapped by a crime lord who rules an indeterminate city. You move from left to right through a variety of streets and locations, beating up anyone in your path. No one has guns until the boss as the very end of the game.

I never beat the game myself. A friend did. I never played it quite enough to beat it. I never was very good at games anyway. I have decided now, at the age of thirty, to devote a little time to try and beat "Streets Of Rage." I'm making progress. I now can consistently get to level 6, which is a reasonable achievement. If I keep at it, I think I can beat the game. The trick is not working at it to an unreasonable degree.

The game has some nuances to it. Each of the four controllable characters is slightly unique. Max is huge and strong, but slow and unable to jump very high. Skate is fast and jumps well, but weak. Axel is more rounded, possessing modest strength and speed, but being a slightly less good jumper and being above average at fighting technique. Blaze is my favorite, as she is even across the board. I've done the best with her.

You see the same bad guys appear over and over in the game. Today there'd be more variety of bad guys to beat up, but seeing the same guys doing the same thing is an effective method of developing true antipathy toward those bad guys. I just loath the bald guy who uppercuts me when I come at him with a flying kick. I hate the mohawk guy who slides at me down low. I hate the redhaired guy who comes at me with a knife and the bike guy who always steals my lead pipe. It goes on like that.

The first couple levels are not too tough, but it starts getting more difficult after that. There are little tricks, like having the right weapon on you at the right time. This makes an almost impossible boss an easy one to beat. Of course, I haven't learned all the tricks. I am presently stuck on the penultimate level. I'll get there, I guess, unless real life stuff takes up too much of my time and energy (as this is right now).