Rise from my what??!!??

Rise from my what???.

Back at the dawn of time (well the early 90's but still, a bloody long time ago) Sega released its follow up to the Master system, the Mega drive (or genesis if your from a bit further west than me).

 

This amazing machine was SEGA's answer to  Nintendo's NES console and later that decade went on to compete with the SNES  as well.

The mega drive was a fantastic console and it was the first games machine I owned all to myself (the nes being shared with my two younger brothers), When it first arrived in my  house one Christmas morning it came with a side scrolling beat em up called altered beast- now this would have been a fairly forgettable vanilla action title if it was not for 3 things, firstly its 2 player and let you a friend fight through ancient Greek grave yards and the darkened underworld of hades.

Secondly was the fact that after you kicked the crap out of enough hell hounds (Cerberuses?...cerberie?....what's the plural of Cerberus??) you got to morph into werewolves, bears and even electric flying dragons !

But the best bit of the game was the actual digitised speech! Your adversary got some great lines to spout at you as he prepared to carve you a new one "welcome to your doom!" and  "Ha Ha Ha!" as he laughed at your pathetic efforts.

But the best line was reserved for Zeus himself- as he resurrected you and your brother from the dead the king of the Greek gods seems to have developed a speech impediment as he commands you to "wise fwom your gwaves!" unintentionally giving rise to a thousand internet memes .

 Aside from this, altered beast was a really good game with some hefty action, truly unique bosses (how many eyes can one demon have??!!?) and a clever morphing game mechanic that turns the tables on the monsters about halfway though each level.

 

I have many happy memories of playing this and was over the moon to find it included on the 80 game emulator I just bought myself (seem my entry from last week).