Release of the final, complete version of Streets of Rage Remake from Bomber Games: a loving tribute to SEGA's classic brawler.

On april 3rd, the team atYou must login or register to view this content. announced that their 8-year Streets of Rage Remake project had finally come to an end. Not, as many shoestring-budget indie projects do, in failure or abandonment -- but with a complete, fully-playable game that is freely available to the public. You can download it for free You must login or register to view this content.

The brawler genre has undergone something of a decline in recent years, giving out in favor of character-action games such as Devil May Cry, God of War and Bayonetta. Those who were gaming in the early 90s, though, will remember the golden age of punching hordes of goons in the face. SEGA's Streets of Rage 2 is still regarded by many as one of the best examples of the genre, and with good reason -- it was immaculately presented for a Genesis title, it had some of the best game music of all time, and above all it was great fun to play.

Streets of Rage Remake is a loving tribute to the entire saga. The project began on March 17, 2003 with just one developer, known as BoMbErLiNk, but since that time has had contributions from over twenty other people, including designers and musicians. The final version which has just been released is the fifth major revision of the game, and BoMbErLiNk is satisfied that this is the absolute best it's ever going to be.

Impressively, the project was undertaken with absolutely no reverse engineering whatsoever. Throughout the 80,000 lines of code which make up the main game and its (included) toolset, everything was built from visual interpretation, logic and comparison of states. This makes the fact that the game feels like an official Streets of Rage game to play all the more remarkable.

And it's far from a simple remake, too. Besides content from the original games, a huge amount of brand new material has been added, bringing the total number of stages up to 103 and playable characters up to 19. Existing characters have been remastered with new moves and animations, and there are 76 remixed music tracks. All enemies from Streets of Rage 1, 2 and 3 are present and correct, as well as a number of new ones based on both the Game Gear versions and the original box art for the series. As if all that wasn't enough, there's also a variety of new modes, including Battle, Survival, Boss Rush, Events and Volleyball. Those with no friends can play with an AI sidekick. The game structure has branching levels, Genesis-style cutscenes and multiple endings.

It's a pretty impressive achievement, in short. It looks (and plays) like an official, unreleased entry in the series -- and best of all, it's free. Grab it You must login or register to view this content.