Altered Beast came out on the Sega Genesis in 1989 as one of it's first games. If you want a brief rundown on what makes Altered Beast different than any other beat 'em up I'll explain that now. In Altered Beast you defeat enemies, take little orbs called Spirit Balls from fallen enemies. Once you get enough of these you'll transform into a bigger and stronger version of yourself. Collect more and more and you'll actually transform into animals, hence the wolfman on the games cover. You can become even more than a wolf but you'll see all the different transformations as you progress through the five levels.

Yep, you heard me. There are only five levels in Altered beast. And, on the back of the box there is basically a walkthrough and the manual even shows you all the enemies including the bosses. I just thought that was a bit weird. None of the levels are really that long at all making the game a breeze if your a veteran of beat 'em ups but if you're not the game can be really challenging and if you die like say on the second or third level, you'll have to start from the beginning of the game. Frustration galore for newbies!

As for the storyline, you play as a dead Roman Centurion. That's right your dead. And that's where the famous lines "Rise from your grave" come from. When you start playing the game you are greeted with a very brief introduction scene where the Greek god Zeus comes up and you hear those oh so famous lines that I mentioned earlier. Not quite as famous as "All your base are belong to us" but still a memorable Genesis line. Anyway, you are risin from your grave but that doesn't mean that you're free. Zeus has a task for you! You must save his daughter Athena from the awesomely named enemie-Neff. Neff actually looks pretty lame and you'll see when you fight him. You'll also see him pop up in random parts of the game but I could never seem to kill him then so I guess you can't.

Now moving onto the controls of the game. Altered Beast feels a little stiff to control but the controls themselves are actually pretty easy. It's just that the character isn't exactly the fastest kid on the block and he's not the most agile either making it sort of hard to defeat enemies. But the basic controls are just moving around with the Directional Pad, starting the game with you know, the start button and the button moves. A button makes you punch. B button makes you kick and C button is jump. Maybe the controls could've been a little bit better but it doesn't really hurt the gameplay.

Speaking of the gameplay, it's great! It's one of the best cooperative games on Genesis and probably has some memorable moments for the people who played this cheesy gem. So you walk around and you'll be confronted with enemies that come from either side of the screen or flying guys too. There are even animals that are just randomly charging at you which sometimes doesn't make much sense, but hey just pretend it does. You can duck and attack which is pretty helpful for killing those frickin' bulls. Usually a few hits will take out a common enemy but the boss battles are pretty tough. The first boss took me a few tries. You just need to memorize his method and then it'll be a piece of cake.

As I said earlier, the levels are painfully short and so is the game. But it does have some value in it with the co-op play mainly. It's just fun stuff that'll make you keep coming back for more. As for the single player, fun for the first time through but it kind of loses it's worth the second time. The graphics in Altered Beast are actually nearly spectacular. Considering this is a 1989 Sega Genesis game, the year it first came out, it looks darn well better than many newer Genesis games. That's pretty good because when you look at launch titles for the Playstation 2 and compare them to modern games.....yeah....there's quite a bit of difference there but Altered Beast really holds up. It's well detailed and looks great. The sound is all around pretty good and has some very cheesy brief voice acting. All worth it.

So, overall Altered Beast is a great, cheesy perfect rental game for some great moments for you and your friends. Well I can't say rental because that's long gone for Genesis but a purchase used online or something. Okay, just forget what I said and find some way to buy this game. It's great, it's worth it and you can turn into a wolf. Sometimes everyone just needs to turn into a wolf.