his partner-in-punching Blaze
Fielding (she hasn’t aged a day). Axel
is a former police detective who at
some point opened a dojo and then
started a kind of vigilante crusade
in a city over-run with crazies. Blaze
is another former cop who teamed
up with Axel, and is a judo master.
It’s the duo’s first game in more thantwo decades. Where have they been?
Who knows, but while they were gone
those criminal gangs they brought to
heel in the original trilogy have really
taken over the city, so they’re going to
have their work cut out to get law and
order back. Solo or co-op you’re going
to be taking down wave after wave
of criminals, as the pretty but gritty
city streets stretch out before you
(specifically, scroll before you). As with
its predecessors, Streets Of Rage 4
is a 2D side-scroller and thankfully
it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel
too much. So of course it delights in
throwing large numbers of colourful
gang members at you, all to a pumping
’90s-style techno soundtrack that
gives the game a joyously retro vibe.Crimey-wimey
Don’t let all this fool you into thinking
it’s going to feel like an old game.
Dotemu has managed to keep the
addictive, furious core gameplay that
made the original trilogy so essential,
but updated the mechanics to improve
your fighters’ moves and subtly tweak
the way it plays, for a smoother, faster
and better animated take on the
side-scrolling fighter.
That said, the game still takes all
its cues from the original trilogy –
including the bright, neon-y, fluoro-
cyberpunk aesthetic of the criminal
fraternity. What have these guys
done, apart from obvious crimes
against fashion? Well, there’s graffiti
everywhere, someone probably set a
bin on fire and they’ve almost certainly
been flaunting the ‘one street punk at
a time’ rule in their local sweet shop.
No official confirmation of formats yet,
but we’ve got our fingers crossed for
an Xbox One release this year. QWho doesn’t love a side-scrolling
beat-’em-up? Streets Of Rage is one
of OXM’s all-time favourites, and
publisher Dotemu has teamed up with
developers Lizardcube and Guard
Crush Games to bring a fourth entry in
SEGA’s classic series to life.
We’ve already been impressed
with what we’ve seen of the visual
flair of Streets Of Rage 4, with heroes
Axel and Blaze reimagined and
updated in a gorgeous, hand-drawn
comic-book style, courtesy of the
team responsible for the undeniably
stylish look of 2017’s Wonder Boy: The
Dragon’s Trap remake.
Now, we’ve had a good look at the
ass-kicking gameplay, too. A more
mature, worldly-wise and blond-
bearded Axel Stone is back, alongsideThe first Streets Of Rage was released in 1991, the third and last entry in the series hit the pavement in 1994BELOW The years
have made Axel
more grizzled,
and Blaze looks
more or less how
we remember her.
Streets Of
Rage 4
You gotta scroll with it, as a
much-loved SEGA classic is
reinvented for 2019
Chris Burke
PUBLISHER DOTEMU
DEVELOPER DOTEMU/LIZARDCUBE/GUARD CRUSH GAMES
ETA 2019“Solo or co-op
you’re going to
be taking down
wave after wave
of criminals”
PREVIEW
More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 033