Craig Butcher

Week Note Eighteen - Button Mashers

Streets of Rage 4

It has finally arrived at the end of April 2020 and this mini review is based on the Nintendo Switch version.

From the first impression, the intro immediately brought back memories of the classic Sega Mega Drive (Genesis in the U.S.) version of SoR I and II. I never got to play the third version as was unaware it was produced!

The game itself? The animations are stunning, fluid, and incredibly responsive when moving the characters. The classic Axel and Blaze are back among the new characters created for this 4th outing of SoR series and it comes chock-a-block with some neat features, for example, a combo system to earn extra points meaning you can get creative with the fight moves! The pumping soundtrack in many forms of new, 8 bit, and 16 bits are all here.

Unlocking the story mode and more will present characters from the past games in 16-bit mode - a feature that exists in Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap switching between new and old school graphics. Up to four players can play locally, there is an Arcade and Battle mode, and you can play over the ‘net with others to complete stages in the game. The only issue I have is the lack of cross play where you can play with other players regardless what consoles or PC they are using. Let’s hope it will be solved at some point in the future.

I highly recommend this game if you are a fan of the classic beat ‘em up series and for new gamers, you will love this.

Website: Streets of Rage 4.

Web designing

May is the month where I will be experimenting with design on my website. It is good challenge to see how far I can push my design capability and learning advanced CSS. My findings will be on written up on here using codepen examples.

Minimal hardwares

It’s hard when being a geek / nerd / computer person and I have a fair amount of tech laying around. Using the classic “If it is not used within six months, it’s out” rule, it is pure torture to decide if is worth selling one of my mechanical keyboards. Recently, I have sold the last batch of retro gaming games that has been on eBay for a fair amount of time and I know that I can easily play any of the 8 bit games on the Odroid Go. There are some odd hardwares like multiple USB WiFi adapters that I set up a wireless access point as an experiment with the raspberry pi zero. Excuse me, I think I have some ideas what to build now...

And finally...

Dance for donuts - Hang in there folks, the good times will be back.

Stay safe, make bread!

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