Altered Beast

Arcade 1988 Dos Dosbox SEGA Side scrolling Action

The beat em up sidescroller that put Ancient Greece on the map

Many side scroller beat'em up games have been developed for the DOS platform (and for home consoles and cabinets, etc.) but few of them have ever consider to set the action in Ancient Greece. This is where Altered Beat comes in. Altered beast has quite a strange though enticing back story. The protagonist is a centurion which is sent back to life but none other than Zeus to rescue his daughter Athena. Yep, you will learn a bit about the legends of Olympus while mashing away at the keyboard. At any rate, to make up for disturbing the centurion's rest, Zeus also bestows upon the centurion the ability to transform into a werewolf, but that will require some power-up collection on the way. The game plays very well today just as well, so if you've ever went left to right in a platformer before, you will know what to do. The tricky parts are in finding the right spots when the power of the werewolf is to be used and also finding the patters that will aid you in killing the stage bosses. The game is highly enjoyable today and the sharp 16 bit graphics help with immersion. Plus, you rarely get to experience a platformer/beat em up set in a Greece inspired background, so do try this one out.

The "arcade" game

Altered Beast, made by Sega is the representative of the arcade genre very popular during 80's and 90's. The story is the one of always, a lady has been kidnapped by an evil monster and we must save her. The game is made by level in the typical platform way and you must defeat the enemies jumping, punching and kicking them. At the end of eache level the monster will block you, so, be careful. In every level you can collect some special items to transform in a different animal (a wolf, a bear, ...) and use special powers against the enemy.

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