Early inthe 90's the streets of rage trilogy kicked off with streets of rage then followed that up swiftly with streets of rage 2 (known as bare knuckle 2 in japan) The game consists of four availible players two of which were new from the first game Max thunder a wrestler and Eddie "skate" hunter (sammy in japan) which is the brother of adam a cop from the first game. These two newbies team up with the two other originals Axel and Blaze.

The games itself is your typical left to right sega game that pits you agains loads of street thugs fat baseball players the odd flying maniac and a few kung fu experts and the odd annoying women with an electric whip and filling them in sums up the basics of the game.

Its amusing that many of the people you fight have the same name as each other they look the same and dress the same and there is roughly only 15 opponants (if that) that vary. The people you fight have a health bar in this game unlike the first where that was reserved just for the first and its weapons have changed slightly such as no more baseball bat and now each character has its own "sepcial" move as opposed to the police car from the first.

The typical funky soundtrack is there while you walk about breaking heads and its nice to see women get equal rights to a arse kicking too as they are some of the more annoying opponents with their hig heel jumping kicks.

Round 1: Downtown
Round 2: Bridge Under Construction
Round 3: Amusement Park
Round 4: Baseball Stadium
Round 5: The Ship
Round 6: Mr. X's Private Island
Round 7: Munitions Plant
Round 8: Syndicate Stronghold

These are the eight rounds you work your way through to get to fight Mr x at the end where the only ending is the good one where you save adam and escape the island you are on.

I find it amusing how now every game is scrutinised for age restrictions but here we have a prime example of a game that was sold to young kids where the object is to beat up everyone even women with knifes and poles and no one cared.

Overall i think this was a good upgrade from the first and in some respect better than the 3rd in the trilogy. I even remember that there is a extra life in the bottom left corner of the first level and same again when you exit the truck later on.............. I played this game nearly 20yrs ago.... how sad is that.

I have used this review in the xbox section as I have the game currently on the megadrive collection although it is still exactly the same as when I owned this on the megadrive in the early 90's