Golden Axe - Megadrive

Golden Axe - Megadrive (Released 1989)

Many will fondly remember this game. "Golden Axe" was a massive arcade hit in the late 1980s, and is a side scrolling 2D beat em up. A Megadrive (Sega Genesis) port came in 1989 and was a massive hit.

It's a one or two player game, and you begin selecting your character. You have the choice of a barbarian, a lady, and a dwarf. Yes I know....doesn't exactly sound like a tough choice in character selection! The barbarian had the obvious strength, but was relatively slow, whilst the woman was more agile. The dwarf on the other hand had some great magical powers.

The game is basic in controls, you can move up and around the screen to take on the enemys rather in the style of Double Dragon/Streets of Rage. One button is jump, another is strike your weapon, and the final button was to unleash your magic. To dash, you hit the direction twice.....and you can then shoulder barge by hitting the attack button whilst running. This shoulder dash proved to be the most potent weapon in the game, and it can look rather amusing if you're playing two player, and all these characters on screen are doing these shoulder barges at the same time. During the game, you need to collect potions (usually via kicking in these pixies who hold then), and these give you magic. The more you collect, the more powerful the spell.

The main antaganist in the game is "Death Adder", who you meet as the last boss. What I found about this game, was that it is quite easy, including old Death Adder himself. I guess because it was an arcade game to begin with, they wanted it to be fairly straightforward to get through. The Megadrive port itself is reasonable.....perhaps lacking in a few colours, but the controls were very good. The Amiga version lost nothing in translation from the arcade version, but the controls are a bit stiff and awkward with just one button. So I recommend this version. I hear good things though about the Xbox 360 version which appears on Xbox Arcade for download. Otherwise, the Genesis port is available on Virtual Console on the Wii for 800 points.

The game's good fun. It's not a masterpiece, is a bit easy, but it's still a lot of fun, and one of those games you remember from your childhood. It was always a great laugh mounting the dragons and being able to flame everyone in your path. This is the original, and the best of a trilogy (all I believe are on Wii's Virtual Console), so go check it out.

[SIZE="4"]Score : 7/10[/SIZE]










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