Games that get it right

[Il Postino]

One word for anybody who still rates the (impossibly dated) Streets Of Rage series...


Vendetta.

[Duddyroar]

The MD game was a fine conversion, but I always thought the colours looked a little washed out

Strange you think that. Viewed in glorious RGB, it still knocks me for six even today. The moutains in the distance of the second level (as you make the famous 'run') are nothing short of breathtaking. Strider has a quality that was never bettered on the MD (IMO, of course).

Plus there was quite a bit removed for the Sega game

Obviously - to expect a straight conversion at that point in time would have been a bit much - these were the days when the first home conversion of Final Fight had to drop a character, a level and a two player mode after all. I just happen to think that Sega's reshaping of Strider worked really well.

Amazingly it also managed to cram in more glitches (no small boast) than the coin-op

I have to admit the game does crack under the pressure sometimes, with sprites falling through walls and terrible flicker, but compared to output at the time it was nothing out of the ordinary. And some of the sprites were MASSIVE so I was able to forgive a little but of break-up.

In general Strider is (still) a good game, but not a great game, simply because like so many arcade titles/conversions of the time it lacks consistency (see also Capcom's own Bionic Commando and indeed Ghouls 'n Ghosts).

I can see what you're getting at, but I simply can't bring myself to agree with you for one reason - the games you mention have given me more enjoyment than any other (modern) game, no matter how polished and well produced. An awful lot of games back then 'lacked consistency' - I'm guessing here but shorter development times might have been a factor. Devlopment teams smaller than the ones you would find today were banging out games at an alarming rate back then and I suppose it was hard to craft everything to perfection. However I still believe titles like Strider were (and still are) prime examples of how to create an exciting videogame.