Game Review: River City Ransom

I bought this game back when it first came out after renting it a few times, as we did in the days of yore before digital downloads and virtual consoles and web stores, but I never really managed to get very far because I couldn't figure out the boss mechanics. Despite that, I loved playing it. I used to play it with my sister all the time, and we'd wander around beating up rival gangs of high school kicks, downing vitamins, and playing in-game baseball using a rock and a lead pipe, and that gave us enough fun that we'd rent it over and over until I finally bought it. Even then, we never managed to beat it, and it sat in my brain's list of games that I loved until I got to university, checked the internet, figured out where Blade was and the whole "backtrack to the park" thing, and then I beat it.

I had occasionally told schoolpsychnerd about how great the game was, but for a long while we had one PS2-to-USB plugin and otherwise had to use the keyboard, and If there's any genre that suffers from having to use a keyboard other than platformers, it's side-scrolling brawlers. Recently, though, we picked up a USB Xbox 360 controller, and after playing around with that a bit I suggested that we play River City Ransom so I could show her why this was so nostalgic to me:


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