X-Men: The Arcade Game - Retro Reflections

Like Streets of Rage 2, this is another title on the PlayStation Network that is both something that can be purchased and a throwback to a classic title.  I'm going to treat it like a Retro Reflection though as I talk about it.  Now, Streets of Rage 2 held up pretty well for me through the glasses of nostalgia, but it was a free title where as X-Men was one I bought on the PSN.

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Tetris - PlayStation Network Review

I think it is safe to say that Tetris is not new - by any stretch of the imagination.  I was first introduced to Tetris back on the NES when I got both the official Nintendo version and the soon-off-of-the-shelves Tengen version that offered two player.  The nature of this puzzle game appealed to me immediately, but what was even more fun for me was that this was one of the few video games my dad would play with me.

I give him credit - my dad tried his hand at Super Mario Bros, Legendary Wings and Iron Tank.  However, while he had played quite a few of the games on our old TI99/4a, the NES itself was never a comfortable system for him - until Tetris.  Fast-forward a couple of decades, and this is still one of the few titles my wife will play.  I have owned it in a lot of versions over the years, from the two NES titles, to the Game Boy one, to Tetris: Splash and more, but I do believe that the PlayStation Network version of this game is my favorite so far.

So, because today's my dad's birthday, I'm going to post this review of what was probably his favorite game when I was growing up.

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Streets of Rage 2 - Retro Reflections

This could fall under a Retro Reflection or a PlayStation Network Review, but I really did not want to break this down into a series of score points.  One of the titles I got to play while using PlayStation Plus was Streets of Rage 2 on the PSN.

This was a classic beat 'em up game from Sega that I played over and over again on my Sega Genesis.  I actually played Streets of Rage 1, 2 and 3 back then - but 2 for some reason was always my favorite of the trilogy.  By today's standards, it can be a bit slow and sometimes the fighting is a bit 'cheap' - but it is still a good throwback to the older days of gaming for those of us who recall Final Fight, Golden Axe, Double Dragon and Streets of Rage so fondly.

The premise is pretty simple - you walk from one side of the screen to the other, causing it to scroll in your direction as you take on wave after wave of street thugs.  Each level culminates in some sort of a boss battle that is equal parts amusing and frustratingly cheap.  Along the way you will pick up a variety of items like food, money and weapons stored in random barrels, benches and more from the environment around you.

You can play the game with a friend, which I recall doing repeatedly when I was younger and it is still fun today.  There is an online versus mode as well that does not hold up nearly as well, for a variety of reasons.  One, the fighting mechanics are really shallow - Street Fighter IV this is not.  Additionally, it seemed like the connections were flaky at best a lot of times.  If I can run around environments like Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 and suffer no lag, then it seems baffling to me that a game like this would consistently have trouble keeping up during a single isolated fight.

Beyond that, it seemed like every time I was about to win, my opponent would disconnect with no fear of tangible penalty that I could detect.  Anyway, not a big deal as the majority of my time spent playing was just trucking through the actual story mode on my own.  I beat it two or three times over the span of a few days, and it definitely provided me with a nice dose of nostalgia along the way.

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