Sega 60th Anniversary free games

Sega, whose founders were originally a provider of entertainment machines to the US army from as early as World War 2 (though don’t tell them that) has since gone on to be one of the most famous game companies out there. In the 1980s they were one of the two juggernauts fighting to fill the void left by Atari after the video game crash of 1983. They went on to make the childhood of many gamers with their home consoles like the Master System and Genesis before finally handing in the towel due to the looming presence and eventual destruction caused by the PlayStation 2 over their Dreamcast.

Today Sega no longer makes games exclusively for themselves, they instead make games for just about everyone who care, be it the lacklustre PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the more interesting Nintendo Switch or the platform of central intelligence: the PC. As a celebration of being incorporated as Sega, they are giving away three games so we are going to look at all of their gameplay briefly. These are not full reviews but just an answer to if you should play these games at all rather than just adding them to your library.

Streets of Kamurocho:

This is what happens when you mix Streets of Rage 2 and Yakuza. This is a patch for Streets of Rage 2 with Yakuza’s world and characters. If you know the Streets of Rage games then you know all that you need to know for now.

The gameplay is purely Streets of Rage which makes you wander through levels trying to knock the lights out of the next guy in your way. The world is displayed in 2D with a 3D area of play. This means that not only can you walk left and right but also up and down allowing you to get in the way of enemies. Once in the path of an enemy, you need to punch them till they drop. Most enemies drop easily but others might have abilities like slide tackles or swords to take you out. To counter the abilities, you can always jump kick, walk into them to perform a grab move or if you can get close enough use your special attack which does a lot of damage but has next to no range.

There are only 2 levels here: the streets and a bar but for a free game to celebrate an anniversary that seems fair enough. All of the characters are just a repaint of Axel so they all play the same. As a result, there is only one character. Along with this, each time you finish the levels you get to start the level again with harder enemies so there is always a reason to retry. For the price of free I suspect Streets of Kamurocho is going to either keep me coming back or starting Streets of Rage 4 again.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2:

In recent years Sonic has not been doing well. All his modern games for the last 2 decades have been poorly received. His success stories have been in cart racing and a fan-made game which is sad to see for a mascot who at one time went toe to toe with the legendary mascot: Mario! In the olden days Sonic and Mario fought a war for the best mascot with the original Sonic the Hedgehog game getting rave reviews so how does the sequel do?

The original Sonic game put Sonic on fast platforms with split-second actions to be done. Every jump and every action were at a brilliantly high speed. You always controlled sonic from loops to springboards which was deadly fun. Sonic 2 on the other hand wants to be more of a platformer which is the definition of a wrong move. The fun in a Sonic game is being fast around a level but Sonic 2 wants to be a platformer so you will find yourself jumping from platform to platform. Sonic moves too fast even while standing still so accurate platforming is a pain in the arse to say the least. Sonic is not a platformer, Mario is. The stupidest combination possible is Mario levels with Sonic’s lack of accurate controls so what the heck was Sega thinking during Sonic 2.

Sonic 3 fixed these problems but Sonic 2 is painful to play because of how much it wants to be Mario. I would skip this one flat out and play Sonic 3 instead. If you don’t grab it during this free offer don’t grab it at all.

Armor Of Heroes:

Battle City (Tank might be a title most you know more) was a massively fun game when I was a kid. It was even better when friends played with me. There was a ton of fun going after my friends and trying to take out their bases while they desperately tried to stop me. Since the old days I have been desperately looking for a modern-day successor and I think I might have finally found it in Armor of Heroes.

Armor of Heroes looks like the modern answer to everyone who loved Battle City… until they start playing it. Armor of Heroes has a similar layout to Battle City except for the fact that you have 360 degrees of aiming and I would like to celebrate that except for how slow it is to aim. The time it takes to get a shot is painfully long, that length is increased further by the fact that your tank needs to turn like a normal tank which is frustrating as all hell. If the tanks would turn instantly then this would be a much better game, it would improve further if the cannons turned even half as fast as they do in modern shooters rather than this snail pace that they do.

This game is a piece of shit.

Conclusion: 

Of all the games Sega has offered for its 60th anniversary only Streets of Kamurocho is worth playing. Sonic 2 is okay but is only worth it if you want to complete your Sonic the Hedgehog collection. Armour of Heroes is honestly an insult to what it was trying to be and can be skipped as a whole.