3/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Revolution X.

System: Arcade Started: April 13, 2023 Ended: April 13, 2023 Free Play Arcade Session - April 13, 2023: 12/12 The last arcade game to end the day at Galloping Ghost before I head out into the dark highway roads. It was a tough choice on the last game to choose from, but I chose Aerosmith’s Revolution X Arcade. Am I a fan of Aerosmith? I thought they were an ok band but not too hardcore for them. I was into them as a young teen during my phase when I was getting into the hard rock music catalog thanks to FM Car radios, Movies and the VH1 Classic Channel Block. The reason I want to play this is because you know I’m into rock music and Midway games. This story fits at home with the rock music genre about a corrupt government militant group called the New Order Nation taking over the world by Head Mistress leader Helga. Entertainment from Music to Video Games are censored and banned, and young people are being sent to “reprogramming” centers and the worst of all: they kidnapped band members of Aerosmith. Surprise premonition to Progressive SJWs and WEF in our current times. You play as a rebel leading the charge on this Revolution and dismantle the New Order Nation by going into levels around the world from Los Angeles, Amazon Jungle, Middle East, Pacific Rim and lastly Wembley Stadium in the UK armed with infinite machine gun rounds and Vinyl Discs you pick up as power-up to throw at people for double damage. Beat the game for a normal ending, but in order to get the best ending, you have to find and rescue the band members of Aerosmith that are hidden in the game. I do like the Arcade Cabinet design as it has three turret guns for three players and one screen to share with. Sure enough, this game was made by Midway in 1994 and for sure the game company has gotten so much popularity thanks to the Mortal Kombat franchise. Even the antagonist character for this game, Helga, is actually Kerri Hoskins from the classic Mortal Kombat games. Which means you now get to see Sonya Blade in Black Leather and chains which is pretty bitchin. It's pretty cool to bring Aerosmith in this game as well as hearing some hits from their catalog like Toys in the Attic, Sweet Emotion and Walk This Way. I do love the Boss designs in this especially their brutal battle-damaged design look, a underappreciated art form in video games nowadays. Right next to enemy death kill animations during gameplay. I was surprised to know about the low review scores for this game afterwards. Would say people played this on the home ports which are completely inferior to the original Arcade version. Would also point out for its cheesiness based on its story plot, the FMV Cutscenes of Aerosmith, the wooden voice acting and how weird its level designs for this game. I, for one, can handle this cheese admittedly. Especially for its one-liners in this game such as ‘Music is the Weapon” and “Now you Got Protection”. For a Light Gun Shooter, As you play most of those games in the genre, you just point and shoot at baddies until you get to the end level boss. Once you are at the Boss segment, you just point and shoot at it with no challenge at all. In Revolution X, they added some sort of puzzle-like shooter design. You have to find a Boss weak spot by noticing the white flash when hit. I wasn’t aware that you are supposed to hit them in certain areas to further damage and would point out that these boss battles were too long. At least the boss fights are enjoyable to see some battle-damaged effects. However, a few bosses were pretty cryptic and the game does not tell you any hints, so you’ll be stuck for quite awhile such as the battle with Helga as you are supposed to fire discs at her as she is positioned just right behind the throne chair in order to progress. If I had to play this with quarters back in 1994 with no guidance on how to beat the boss, I would be broke in no time. Cheesy game, but it's the edible kind that I can eat thanks to its over-the-top and creative design. People actually did not like this game, but for me, Revolution X is flawed, but not that bad and would place it as my list of Guilty Pleasure games. After all, this game would not fly today in our politically correct era in games since you rescue hostage babes and shoot at native amazon tribes as they throw spears at you. Would recommend If you are into Classic Mortal Kombat with live actors as character sprites, low-budget cheesy 80’s action movies, or you are into Aerosmith and 70’s Hard Rock music. If you plan on playing this, I highly recommend playing the Arcade version since most of the home ports are not as good. The MS-DOS port and Sega Saturn ports look playable compared to the others though. Since finding an arcade machine for this game might be hard to find, fingers crossed for Arcade1Up to re-release this game in their catalog.