Cover Games, Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog: Spinning Off

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So we’ve already talked about Sonic’s main 16-bit games on the Mega Drive, as well as his 8-bit adventures on the Game Gear and Master System.

But we have a few more games to explore from this early era before we start exploring the blue blur’s oft-maligned jump into 3D space, and those are the numerous spin-offs that appeared to complement the “mainline” platformer experiences.

Turns out there’s quite a few of them. And they’re pretty much all really cool! Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Sonic the Hedgehog: Spinning Off →

Community, One-Shots

The Importance of Preservation

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In case you missed the news, one of the biggest and most long-running sources for emulators and ROM files on the Internet, EmuParadise, has announced that it is undergoing some changes.

Specifically, the site will no longer be providing games for people to download free of charge; it will be continuing to maintain its database of emulators and hosting its community features, but the main draw for many — the extensive catalogue of ROMs for a variety of systems — has gone away, with every download link now leading to a page which states “this game is unavailable”.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this is emphatically a bad thing. But let’s talk about it anyway.

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Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Amy Rose

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It’s Sonic month here on MoeGamer, so, well, we gotta do what we gotta do.

The Sonic series as a whole actually has a decent number of fun, cute and sexy female characters, with probably the most well-known of them being Sonic’s not-girlfriend Amy Rose.

With most gamers’ first encounter with her being 1993’s Sonic CD, what you may not know is that she’s actually one of the few Sonic characters to be introduced via media from outside of the video games, before later being incorporated into the main series canon. So let’s take a look at where she came from and who she is!

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Videos, Warriors Wednesday

Warriors Wednesday: I’m Nobunaga, Bitch – Warriors Orochi #1

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Last month’s feature on Hyrule Warriors got me thoroughly re-enamoured with the Warriors series as a whole, so I figured why not spend some time playing through some installments I’ve never tried before?

One subseries I’ve always been particularly curious about is Warriors Orochi, an ambitious, fantastic crossover affair which initially brought together the casts of Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors before, in later installments, diversifying in all sorts of strange directions.

Hit the jump to see my first experiences with the Xbox 360 version of the first game in this peculiar series!

Continue reading Warriors Wednesday: I’m Nobunaga, Bitch – Warriors Orochi #1 →

Cover Games, Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog: Little Brothers

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It’s fair to say that, for many people, Sonic’s “golden age” was the 16-bit era that encompassed his first four(ish) games.

What doesn’t tend to get talked about quite so much is the fact that, around the same time, there were some fantastic 8-bit releases in the series on Sega’s Master System console and ill-fated Game Gear handheld.

So, well, let’s talk about that, shall we?

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Delving Into..., Dragon Quest, Hand of the Heavenly Bride

Delving into Dragon Quest: Hand of the Heavenly Bride – #2

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I’m about ten hours deep into Hand of the Heavenly Bride at the time of writing… and it’s been a highly enjoyable adventure so far.

Last time, we talked a bit about how the prologue chapter of the game represents an interesting exploration of childhood and fatherhood.

Now that my adventure “proper” is well underway, I thought I’d start examining some of the interesting things this fifth installment in the series is doing.

Continue reading Delving into Dragon Quest: Hand of the Heavenly Bride – #2 →

Community

Brotherhood of the World Bloggers Award

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There’s gaming stuff coming a little later today, but for now it’s time for another Community post!

The charming and attractive Arthifis was good enough to nominate me for the “Brotherhood of the World Bloggers Award”, and these things are always a good bit of fun, so I thought I’d indulge.

For the uninitiated, these “Award” posts are primarily an excuse for those of us with itchy typing fingers to cross-promote each other, get to know one other a bit better and also to let you, dear reader, find out a bit more about us. So without further ado, let’s begin this round.

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Sunday Driving, Videos

Sunday Driving: Blur – Powered-Up Racing

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Following some discussion on the podcast recently, I decided to revisit some old favourite arcade racers, including Bizarre Creations’ swansong Blur.

For the uninitiated, this “powered up racer” features a delightful blend of real-world cars and locales with purely fantastic, neon-coloured power-ups. This makes the racing enormously aggressive and a huge amount of fun, and it’s a crying shame that Activision completely failed to market the game effectively.

But, well, the game still exists, so I’m damn well going to play it and enjoy it, and you can join me for the ride! Hit the jump for the first part of this new video series.

Continue reading Sunday Driving: Blur – Powered-Up Racing →

Cover Games, Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog: Finding His Feet

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So let’s start from the beginning.

The year was 1990. Nintendo was enjoying a protracted period of dominance in the video game market thanks to a combination of high quality games and a highly recognisable mascot in the form of Super Mario. With the release of Super Mario Bros. 3, the company had become seemingly unstoppable. But that didn’t stop Sega from wanting to try.

Sega needed a new mascot. The company’s earlier creation Alex Kidd just wasn’t cutting it any more, since, as a human character, he was perceived as, at best, too similar to Super Mario; at worst, something of a pale imitation. Sega’s CEO at the time, Hayao Nakayama, wanted a character as iconic as Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Oh, what to do?

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Cover Games, Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog: Introduction

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“Sonic hasn’t been good for a long time.” “Sonic has never been good.” How many times have we seen articles about Sega’s incredibly popular mascot start this way?

The fact is, despite enduring a consistently more mixed (at times outright cynical and negative) critical reception than longstanding rival Mario from Nintendo, Sonic the Hedgehog still has legions of dedicated fans, and has done since he first appeared on our screens in 1991.

This month, we’re going to be taking a look at a wide variety of Sonic the Hedgehog games from across time, ranging from his first 2D platformer forays up until his more recent 3D adventures… and, of course, his extremely well-received return to 2D in the form of Sonic Mania, the physical Plus release of which was the catalyst for this whole set of features.

Continue reading Sonic the Hedgehog: Introduction →

The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.