Friday, January 20, 2012

Rewind Review

ALTERED BEAST (SEGA GENESIS 1988)

Altered Beast Pictures, Images and Photos 

When I was a young Altered Beast scared the shit out of me. You play as a hero who is literally raised from the dead by what would appear to be Zeus or some other God to rescue a girl who has been captured by an albino man draped in a purple cloth. Come to think of it he guy actually looks a lot like Powder.

   

Striking resemblance, I know. 

Anyway, while I played it almost weekly when I was younger on the Sega Genesis I never was able to beat the game. So when I heard that it was going to be featured on the Genesis Collection for PS3 I went out and got a copy. Obviously this time around I was older and wiser and expected to easily beat this albino bastard and finally rescue the girl. Not the case.

Altered Beast was every bit as challenging as I remembered it to be. I even tried co-op mode and figured the game would be a little more manageable with another player but not at all. Some of the enemies in Altered Beast are impossible to hit without taking any damage, and while there are opportunities to "Power Up" you never receive any health. This is likely due to the fact that it was originally an arcade game and the developers had to think of a way to get kids to keep pumping in quarters, but this should have been changed when they decided to release it onto consoles.

Another thing that surprised me about Altered Beast this time around is how short the game actually is. Four levels and four bosses. Then you are done. Really the only challenging part about the game is the health issue but on the PS3 there is a save mode. After hours of trying to beat the game without using the save mode I finally broke down and just said "fuck it". If you are saving constantly you can beat the game in under 15 minutes.

BOTTOM LINE: All in all I think that Altered Beast was one of my favorite titles on the Genesis. It was scary, the transformations your characters takes on are all pretty cool, excluding the one when you become a bear. The bear just looked to cute to be in an underground hell dimension.


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