http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUf436NS65I

Well, not really. It's for some movie called City of Ember. But the style they've chosen to create the city looks a bit like Bioshock, doesn't it?

Speaking of Bioshock, I was playing it on Easy mode today (it really is disgustingly easy compared to hard mode) while my cousin watched. As she is about the same age as Little Sister, her reaction to harvesting or rescuing was quite interesting. She told me to harvest them because they were "creepy." I would have thought that little kids would chosen the "rescue" option, but apparently that isn't the case. When I looked up other articles on Bioshock, I was quite surprised to see reviewers say "oh my 8 year old son/daughter came across me playing Bioshock and told me to harvest them." I don't know if this is is a universal thing, and I wouldn't advise anyone to park their little siblings/cousins/neighbours in front of Bioshock just to see their response to this, but it's just a random thought of the day.

Also, if you are interested in plastic surgery, you probably wouldn't want to go to this guy:

http://www.mdskinesthetics.com/

Streets of Rage 2 (or Bare Knuckle 2, as it was known in Japan) was one of the first games I had ever played on the Sega Mega Drive. The first thing I noticed upon starting the game with my brother was that the characters on the select screen looked nothing like how they were portrayed on the box.





After actually starting the game properly, though, it was a blast.

The basic premise was this – your friend has been kidnapped so go kick ass. You were dropped into a variety of environments, ranging from the streets, to construction sites, to beaches and jungles. You could dispatch enemies using hand-to-hand combat or with weapons lying about on the floor – knives, lead pipes, katanas or even bombs enemies threw at you. You had to be quick though, or it would blow off in your hand.



It was ridiculously fun beating the crap out of the low-lives terrorising the city, especially on co-op mode. I’m not lying when I say that Streets of Rage 2 might have actually taught us the value of teamwork. Enemies could drop down on you from anywhere and you had to watch each other’s backs, especially if you had low continues.


GRAND UPPER!!

The bosses were pretty nuts – ranging from obese baseball fans that liked to belly flop on top of you to guys on jetpacks whizzing just out of range and robots. Annoying little buggers they were as well, thanks to their small habit of self-destructing whenever they were about to die and their constant jumping around.

Streets of Rage 2 was not the first game we’d ever played. No, the first game we’d ever played fleetingly was Sonic the Hedgehog. But Streets of Rage 2 was the first game we had ever completed. Giving that last punch to Mr X and watching him fall down in slow-mo was incredibly satisfying. So satisfying in fact, it gave us the determination and drive to complete the other games we’d got – Sonic, Rolling Thunder 2, Road Rash 2 etc. Most importantly, though, Streets of Rage 2 showed me that games could be fun and rewarding.

Oh, and yes, I’m new around here. Hi.