First off, the premise. Cody and Haggar are "friends" working together to save Cody's girlfriend in a kidnapping. The girl is clearly the excuse, and obviously the pretty boy Cody's beard because Haggar is the most obvious leather daddy I have ever seen pixellated. Both are in awesome shape--I have fond memories of being more than a little aroused playing the game as a kid (especially in two-player mode), and even now blame it on my predilection for muscley types over slightly androgynous skinny boys and my self-esteem's need for me to go to the gym on a regular basis. Since Haggar is mustachioed and ONLY wearing pants and Cody has those skin-tight faded blue jeans on, I don't think there is any argument over who the pitcher wearing the pants is.

Secondly, the setting. So Haggar and Cody decide to go around Metro City in a series of stages that look markedly like every set from every New York City porno I've ever seen. The abandoned warehouse, the subway, the alleyway, the shopping center. All, coincidentally, just teeming with half-naked, bubble-butted muscular thugs. Is it getting hot in here?

Finally, the enemies. These crack me up the most. Whenever Cody and Haggar move to a new location, they upset their enemies in their natural habitat. This often involves sitting really close to one another and looking suspiciously like they just got interrupted in the middle of something OR loitering around with one knee up, looking deeply at passersby. These thugs run the whole gamut of stereotypes, from shirtless rough trade to mini-caped hustlers to full on Jeff Stryker lookalikes. Don't even get me started on Thrasher, the first boss, who likes to jump on a banister and whistle for his gimps whenever fighting gets tiresome.

My guess is that Capcom (no stranger to games of the homoerotic nature) decided to make the gayest game they could imagine, but understanding the political undertones of the time, decided to throw in a damsel in distress to "clean it up" a little. It's funny how time and knowledge change something. When I was a kid, this was the game that my tougher friends liked, and although I liked it too, never once thought anyone other than myself would find anything titillating there. Now it looks so obvious!

Yes, a lot of this is based on stereotypes, but come on, this was the early nineties... We've come a long way since then, right? Our games have got complicated relationships, with real emotion. Take Kingdom Hearts 2, or Gears of War! Now we can look back with a tear in our eyes, remembering a simpler time when men were men, and a cruise through the city brought you exactly what you expected--a rough tumble behind some dirty crates.