In SOR2. violence IS the answer.

In 1991, SEGA released a beat em up called Streets of Rage for the Sega Genesis. The game was a success, and in 1992, SEGA released the follow up, Streets of Rage 2. That game has now been re-released for the Xbox 360, on the Xbox Live Arcade, with some additions, and one minor omission. So how does the game fare?

One of the stars of the original Streets of Rage, Adam, has been kidnapped, by a now familiar villian: the cleverly named Mr. X. I say clever, because anyone named Mr. X has to be bad, and bad guys need to get their asses kicked. And that's where you come in. You take control of one of four characters: Axel or Blaze, who return from the original streets of rage, or one of the two newcomers, Max (a wrestler) or Skate, Adam's younger brother, who rides around on rollerblades, dishing out pain in the name of his older sibling.

Sound engaging? No, and it doesn't need to be. This is a beat em up. No fancy narrative needed. Beat em ups are all about putting fist to face, and that's exactly what you do in this game. Well, not just fists. Elbows, feet, pipes, swords, rollerskates, all sorts of things can be utilized in the pursuit of dishing out pain.

So, for anyone not familiar with Streets of Rage, or beat em ups in general, the basic idea is scrolling left to right, beating up various foes, and collecting items and weapons along the way. You do this for a few minutes, and then you arrive at a boss, who is often large and menacing, and on occasion, bordering on cheap. You defeat him or her, and then repeat. It might sound repetitive, and in a way it is, but what keeps these games fun is a combination of co-op play and movesets.

It's fun to utilize various techniques to take down your foes, and one of SOR2's strong suits is that it provides ample opportunity to do just that. You don't just mash on the attack button like you do in some other games of this type. You have 2 special attacks for each character, as well as a dash attack. You also have a variety of throws and grapple manouvers. Simply walk into an enemy to initiate a grapple, and then, depending on what character you are using, you can punch, kick, front throw, reverse throw, or jumping throw the enemy. Throwing them into a group of other enemies sends them all flying, in a satisfying display of macho bravado.

The fun is doubled when you have a friend join the fun. In the old days, they were always beside you. Now, for the XBLA re-release, they can be basically anywhere in the world, as online play has been enabled, and works fairly well from what I have played. I have not encountered any problematic latency issues, although I play with my friend, who lives an hour away from me. I can't attest to the quality of the online play when you play people across the country or internationally. Local co-op works exactly as you'd expect it to.

Another aspect of the game that keeps it from getting stale is the varied environments. In addition to the typical street levels, you'll fight in and on ships, baseball diamonds, complexes, bars, beaches...you travel from one location to the next, always providing a fresh backdrop. Also, the enemy variety is quite impressive. Along with the typical denim jacket wearing thugs, you'll face off against Muay Thai kickboxers, kangaroos, ninjas, samurais, big fat baseball players who breath fire and do belly flops (seriously), kung fu masters, enemies wearing jetpacks, guys that look like the old wrestling tag team the road warriors, guys riding motorcycles, and more.

Graphically, it's a good looking game if you take it in the context of the time in which it was released. Nice, big sprites, good animation, and the aforementioned varied locales, in combination with some great, catchy music, all adds up to a nice audio/visual experience. Just keep in mind the age of the game. It's around 15 years old.

In addition to the online play, a save anywhere feature was added for the XBLA release, as well as online leaderboards, and of course, some achievements to unlock.

The one minor omission in this re-release is the sound test mode, which was present in the original and is inexplicably missing here.

This game is definitely one of, if not, the, best beat em ups ever released. It's a classic, and for $5 with online play, the XBLA version is a definite no brainer. At least download the free trial, and see if you can put it down.....

Overall score: 9.5/10

Click above to watch Gameplay video