Jump to content
IGNORED

Game Debate #57: Altered Beast


Reed Rothchild

Rate it  

36 members have voted

  1. 1. Rate based on your own personal preferences, NOT historical significance

    • 10/10 - One of your very favorite games of all time.
      0
    • 9/10 - Killer fucking game. Everyone should play it.
      0
    • 8/10 - Great game. You like to recommend it.
    • 7/10 - Very good game, but not quite great.
    • 6/10 - Pretty good. You might enjoy occasionally playing it.
    • 5/10 - It's okay, but maybe not something you'll go out of your way to play.
    • 4/10 - Meh. There's plenty of better alternatives to this.
    • 3/10 - Not a very good game.
    • 2/10 - Not your cup of tea at all. Some people might like this, but you are not one of them.
      0
    • 1/10 - Horrible game in every way.
    • 0/10 - The Desert Bus of painful experiences. You'd rather shove an icepick in your genitals than play this.
      0
    • Never played it, but you're interested.
    • Never played it, never will.
      0
  2. 2. Next week's poll

    • Super Mario Kart
    • Contra III: The Alien Wars
    • Donkey Kong Country
    • Secret of Mana


Recommended Posts

4/10

Very meh. Typical of a Sega arcade-to-console port in that there's just not enough game here. Not terribly difficult, can be beaten in 10 minutes, and very little replay value. I guess it looked nice at the time, but honestly it doesn't look so hot to me now. I will say that "Wise fwom yo gwave!" is a pretty iconic video game line that will always make me chuckle. Gameplay isn't bad, though, it's just not great and it's over too quick.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3/10

Altered Beast is really bad. But at the same time, it's literally like 8 minutes long. Mega props to the devs for making a beat 'em up that doesn't drag on for an hour, because the genre is repetitive enough as-is. The only thing in this game that resembles interesting game design is the stage 4 boss.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My local bowling alley had an Altered Beast machine and I thought the monster designs were awesome.  The Genesis port was pretty decent. My friend got his Genesis when Altered Beast was the pack in game and it was probably what got me on the Sega side of the console wars that consumed our nation's playgrounds in the early 90s.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

3/10

Altered Beast is really bad. But at the same time, it's literally like 8 minutes long. Mega props to the devs for making a beat 'em up that doesn't drag on for an hour, because the genre is repetitive enough as-is. The only thing in this game that resembles interesting game design is the stage 4 boss.

The main gimmick of transforming into beasts is interesting game design for the time. Besides for the gimmick it is just a stiff and generic beat em up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dumb luck may have it I've not played the original arcade game since like the earlier 90s, that is, until today.  Happened to get the Sega Astro City in the mail so I put off posting on this to put a few quarters against the game to see it again fresh.

Damn this game one, never was excellent, and two, argh has it aged horribly.  I know Sega wasn't best with those types of games with the hand to hand, often their stuff unlike what SNK or Capcom did, or even Technos was just loaded with weird jump mechanics, punches and kicks that leave you too open, and well, unavoidable hits to lure more quarters out of your pocket.  You can call it bad design, or quarter magnetism at its finest for the period.  This game suffers from it.  On the ground it's a decent game, annoyingly auto scrolling, but not an issue really.  But in the air, trying to jump and worse try and jump and hit a moving target, it's crap, and avoiding stuff coming in from above at those angles is even worse.

I'm not sure in this age I can recommend playing it at all if you want to try something new, and unless you were really enraptured by it on the arcade or forced (what a crap choice) pack-in with the Genesis, it may not even be worth revisiting much, at least not seriously.  I've played worse, not much though, and I'm talking then, adding in now makes it less in its favor.

It's not costing me real money as the mini is a free play device with a bottomless pit of quarters, and I'm not sure I want to suffer that again after doing about 2 stages in it, I hit reset as I was over it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, mbd39 said:

The main gimmick of transforming into beasts is interesting game design for the time. Besides for the gimmick it is just a stiff and generic beat em up.

You’re right, that is neat too. But the thread says to rate my enjoyment not historical significance so I’m not allowed to give considerations for the time!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

You’re right, that is neat too. But the thread says to rate my enjoyment not historical significance so I’m not allowed to give considerations for the time!

Even today the beast transformation makes the gameplay a lot more interesting than it otherwise would have been. I mean, it's something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have to agree with @Webhead123.  I am giving this a 6 solely based on the arcade cab.  When this came out to our Aladdin's Castle in early 1989, it was the hotness for a good bit until Smash TV and TMNT came out.  I have a vivid memory of myself showing this game to my little brother and not knowing how to pronounce "Altered" correctly.  I was a bad speller/reader even at the age of 10 (thankfully, that "late bloomer" syndrome was gone by the time I hit my teens).  I called it "Alexander Beast."  (Yep, stupid, I know!)

Going on the Genesis version...maybe a 5, or 4.5.  I liked playing it on the Genesis at my friend's house (we got our Genesis when Mortal Kombat came out to consoles, so Altered Beast was way in the review mirror by 1993) and thinking how cool it was to play this when I only had a NES at home.  But nowadays, the only half-way decent way to play the game is the Arcade ROM.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I had to pick 5 arcade cabs based off of sheer nostalgia, this would have to be one of them.  Not sure why, but this was one of a few that seemed be everywhere there was a line of 2-4 arcade cabinets.  For me, this was a favorite to play at the skating rink after I got my sprite and a hot dog.

But as a game, no it's not great.  I really don't know why we all loved playing this game so much.  I guess the gimmick was a big draw to most of us, but this wasn't a flash-fad of a game.  These cabinets stuck around a looooong time, which wouldn't have happened if they weren't earning money.  Someone was enjoying Altered Beast again and again.  Maybe some arcade gamers actually liked that it was short.  Being able to beat a game in 8-10 minutes on one quarter is great for skate rinks, bowling alleys and pizza joints.  In an arcade where you'd plan to be their a couple hours, you'd probably feel more shorted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I rated it higher than most of you but completely due to nostalgia.  In 1989 I sold my NES and 32 games through a classified ad in the local paper, which I used to buy a Genesis at launch.  It was a quantum leap in graphics at the time.  Altered Beast is short and easy, but still fun today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5. Maybe the Genesis version deserves a 4. It's a decent game especially with two players, but nothing special. If it weren't the pack-in game and if it weren't for "WRise fwrom your gwave!" nobody would remember it and you'd only hear about it in those sometimes insufferable "hidden gems" videos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

True story: when the Genesis launched, my next door neighbour called me up all excited because he had just received a brand new Genesis and invited me over to play it.  Well, an hour later I was back at home playing Mario 2 and vowing I would never touch another Sega console as long as I lived.  I cannot believe they picked this slow-ass turd of a game to be the pack-in title; it kept me away from the Genesis for years.  To say that I was not impressed with this game back then would be the biggest understatement of 1989...

3/10

Edited by Dr. Morbis
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Sumez said:

A game I like to make fun of due to how poor it is compared to its popularity at the time.,

But I'll have to admit, I never played it past the second stage. 😕 

Well the making fun of it, you're still justified.  There's nothing beyond stage two that would make you feel better about it, probably worse.  It gets more challenging on top of just playing badly even by period standards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Graphics Team · Posted

Altered Beast is just one of those games that epitomizes "classic gaming" to me, along with stuff like Ghosts "N Goblins, Galaga, Space Invaders, etc. Even if the quality of the game isn't great, it's still noteworthy for that reason alone.

-CasualCart

900611716_AlteredBeastShinKicks.jpg.c806c9f019a86d6960c0852fdca24129.jpg

 

  • Like 2
  • Haha 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...