A bestly conversion (Sega Altered Beast (Amiga))

Member Name: sagat

Product:	Sega Altered Beast (Amiga)
Date:	08/03/09 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of frantic action

Disadvantages: Bit short, poor conversion

Altered Beast was Sega's conversion of their own arcade game. It was initially bundled with the Megadrive as a freebie, until Sonic became the bundled game of choice. Despite what the PR hype said, it was far from arcade perfect and received pretty poor reviews.

You have been murdered by Neff, had your girlfriend stolen and must get her back. You are told to 'Wise fwom your gwave!' and battle your way through legions of monsters, collecting power ups which tranform you into a Were-monster.

You need to collect three power ups to transform, but each one makes you a little stronger. The Were-monsters range from the rather excellent Dragon and Golden Werewolf to the rather poor Werebear!

The levels are an assortment of locations such as graveyards, underground catacombs and caverns. The screen scrolls along pushing the action along with it and you must move with it, dispatching your enemies with punches and kicks. You meet Neff up to three times on each level, only battling him if you are in your animal mode. Fighting Neff in human form is generally more difficult, and in some cases, downright impossible.

The game itself is not a perfect conversion of the arcade game. The sound, graphics and gameplay do not match the levels of the original, but the game itself is not too bad. As with many of these types of games, I feel you have to review them within the context of their time. Whilst this is not the greatest arcade conversion in the world, this is not a complete abomination.

The graphics are fairly decent, and the humungous bosses from the original remain in their full glory. The eye boss of the second level has left a lasting impression on me of just how hideous bosses should look.

Whilst the voice effects have produced a string of internet based jokes, the sound effects and music are not too shoddy and carry the came along nicely. Your character does sound as is he has been genuinely mortally wounded when he dies for example.

Perhaps the main criticism of the game is its length. The experience is over far too quickly. Again, it has to be remembered that this is an arcade game where lastability is secondary to playability. Sega did not want to provide thirty odd hours of gameplay when it wanted people pumping in ten pence pieces.

All in all, Altered Beast is not a bad game, but it is definately not a classic. Games like Eswat were better at the time, whilst the likes of Streets of Rage massively improved on what it had to offer.

Summary: So so for the time, poor by todays standards