Fans take 8 years to create a souped-up fan version of Streets Of Rage, takes Sega 1 week to take it down
Matt Hawkins If there’s one thing I will never understand is copious amounts of passion and talent (plus time) that certain video game fans are so willing to squander away.
So here’s the story: about eight years ago, some diehard fans of Sega’s side-scrolling, beat-em-up decided to pool their talents and create the ultimate version of their beloved game. This included combining elements from all three main entries in the series, plus variants found in the portable versions and related material, including the games’ covers(!). In the end was a massive love letter that comprised of 19 playable characters, 64 enemy types, 103 stages, and 83 different remixes.
After many years, the project was at least finished and released to the public. The team was quite happy and gave themselves well deserved (in their minds) pats on the back. The word got out via various gaming blogs, and all was fine in the world. Till Sega caught wind of it, of course. Next think you know, the house that Sonic built demanded the game be pulled, a request that Bombergames, the folks behind the project, complied with. And naturally, folks across the internet began bitching about Sega being a bully.
Here’s the deal: I used to teach game design, and if there’s one thing that bummed me out the most were students who had all these wonderful ideas for an X game, with X being some anime or pre-existing game series that they didn’t have proper access to. I tried explaining time after time that, if said game idea was good enough to stand on it’s own, you wouldn’t need to rely upon some pre-existing IP to prop it up. Yet I can’t hearing the same thing over and over again: “But it only works if there’s Naruto characters?!?!” or “But I want to make the ultimate Bleach game!!!” And to answer your question, yes, I had lots of anime dorks in my classes.
The thing is, most of these fan remakes or sequels are usually centered on a game that hasn’t had any real spotlight in years, so the choice of Streets of Rage is especially perplexing given how Sega is constantly rereleasing old Genesis hits for all the modern platforms, from XBLA to iOS. It would have been SO easily to just change the sprites around and give it a slightly different name… fans would still know what it’s about, but more importantly, Sega would not have had such a clear line of sight.
Never-mind how the actual music in the original games are somewhat of a homage/rip-off of the music of the late 80s/early 90s sythnpop act Information Society. Unfortunately I am not able to find the proper amount of evidence on YouTube to present to the court, but trust me… their 1992 album Peace and Love Inc. and the soundtrack to Streets of Rage 2 sound an awful alike.
Anyhow, the real debate here is how Sega supposedly gave the okay. A claim that some outlets, such as Destructoid seems to echo, yet solid evidence has to surface. The only thing I could find was in the comments section of this Kotaku post in which someone points out how Bombergames sent an email to Sega, who then asked for more information, which was sent, but no response to the second one was given… and how they inferred that as an “okay, go ahead, we’re cool with it”. Which is a pretty asinine way to viewing things to say the least (if that is indeed what happened).
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