Dangerous Streets

Dangerous Streets
"Now, that is ass!" — The Angry Video Game Nerd
Genre(s): Fighting Platform(s): Amiga Amiga CD32 MS-DOS Release: 1994 Developer(s): Micromania Software Publisher(s): Flair Software

"It’s often the case that a system’s launch games don’t usually hold up to too much scrutiny as the years go by, you would hope that better games would get release over time as people get to grips with the machine, and yet it’s not common for a console to launch with an all-time terrible game that’s amongst the worst in its genre, unfortunately, that’s what happened with the Amiga CD32, which got paired up with Flair Software’s hideous Dangerous Streets. There are many terrible Street Fighter II rip-offs out there, but this one is seriously from the very bottom of the barrel, and the bloody thing barely even uses any of the supposed advantages that the CD32 had, either over a regular Amiga or other platforms! 32-bit?! Haha, yeah, OK. Unfortunately, with games like Dangerous Streets flying the flag for the machine, the CD32 was basically doomed from the start."

— Kim Justice

Dangerous Streets is a fighting game released in 1994 for the Amiga, Amiga CD32 and MS-DOS. It was published by Flair Software and developed by Micromania Software.

Why It's Dangerous

1. A bizarre selection of characters to choose from:
   • Sgiosa Capeli, the Italian who works at a disco club, looks like a futuristic Tommy Wiseau.
   • Pinen, the Swiss lorry driver, looks like he has his pants undone.
   • Tony, the Italian playboy, looks like a stereotypical greaser.
   • Luisa, the French gym teacher, wears skimpy and revealing clothes.
   • Macalosh, the spiritual boss of the Sioux, looks like he's about to take a dump on an invisible toilet.
   • Ombra, the expert palmist, looks more like a superhero than a palmist.
   • Keo, the custodian for an old castle, wears springs.
   • Lola, the top model, like Luisa, wears very skimpy clothes.
2. Ungodly controls. The buttons do random things and duplicate each other.
   • To top it all, this is one of the few Amiga CD32 games where there is a manual jump button (unlike most other games on the CD32, which use the Up Arrow to jump), despite being a fighting game, where the Up Arrow is normally used to jump.
3. Terrible animation, with characters twitching as if their animation frames are missing. Notable examples include Macalosh's idle animation and Luisa's walking animation.
4. Awful collision detection.
5. The special moves are absolutely ridiculous: for example, Sgiosa can make his catsuit glow to defend himself, Luisa can turn herself into a slab, and Pinen can summon a mini version of himself from inside of him to attack the opponent.
6. Speaking of special moves, they can be hard to perform and most of them are less effective than standard punch and kick attacks.
7. Ombra is incredibly overpowered, which can be difficult if the player fights against him.
8. The computer opponent can be defeated by holding down one button.
9. In the Amiga and CD32 versions, if two players select the same character, they will look identical with no way to tell them apart.
10. If the player is defeated by the computer opponent, they go back to the title screen with no continues.
11. The graphics look bland for a supposed "32-bit" system. They are identical on the Amiga 1200, but look worse on lower-end Amiga models, like the A500 or the A600.
12. The music is pretty dull, consisting of Euro-disco style tunes in the CD32 version, lifeless tunes in the MS-DOS version, and bland Street Fighter II style tunes in the Amiga 1200 version.
    • If the game is played on lower-end Amiga models, there will be no music whatsoever.
13. The sound effects are pretty bad (with some of them being white noise), as are the pre-fight intermission announcements of the characters' names.
14. The Amiga version takes forever to load, due to it being on three floppy disks instead of one CD like the CD32 version.
15. The MS-DOS version adds foreground objects to each stage, which obscure a third of the stage.
16. The MS-DOS version runs really slow on the hardware of the time.

Redeeming Qualities

MS-DOS Version

1. The graphics in the MS-DOS version are more detailed than the Amiga version.
2. The MS-DOS version adds different palettes if two players select the same character.

Reception

"What were they thinking?" The Shit Scale Games that are debatably bad High level of shit contamination The very high category The severe zone Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Major code red 👆 This game/console belongs to the "Very High Category" category of the AVGN's Shit Scale.

Dangerous Streets got negative reviews from the various gaming magazines of the time. The One magazine gave the game a score of 22%, describing it as a "freshly laid turd". German magazine Amiga Joker awarded the game 44% for the CD32/A1200 version, and 20% for the A500/A600 version. Amiga Power gave Dangerous Streets an incredibly low score of 3%, making it the lowest rated game in the magazine's history.

Trivia

• Before Commodore went bankrupt, they bundled Dangerous Streets with their CD32 systems as the "Dangerous Streets Pack".

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