Tag Archives: Genesis

Evercade, Interplay Collection 2, Mega Drive, SNES

Earthworm Jim 2: See What Sticks

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With the positive reception the first Earthworm Jim had on its original release, a sequel was inevitable. But how do you follow something as chaotic and irreverent as Earthworm Jim?

The obvious answer, of course, is to make itΒ even moreΒ chaotic and irreverent, so that’s exactly what Jim’s original creators Doug TenNapel, Dave Perry and Shiny Entertainment did with the follow-up. The result is very much a game that feels like it’s throwing absolutely everything at the wall in order to see what sticks… for better or worse.

You certainly can’t accuse it of just being a rehash of the original, though. So let’s take a closer look, thanks to theΒ Interplay Collection 2Β cartridge on the Evercade retro gaming system.

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Data East Collection 1, Evercade, Mega Drive

Midnight Resistance: Under Lock and Key

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Throughout the 8- and 16-bit home computer and console eras, we saw numerous developers “paying homage” to one another’s work — and often developing their own interesting twists on the formula in the process.

One cannot look at Data East’s 1989 releaseΒ Midnight ResistanceΒ and not think of Konami’sΒ ContraΒ from two years prior, for example, but in practice the two games play quite differently, developing their own distinct identities in the process.

These days,Β ContraΒ is by far the better known game, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exploreΒ Midnight ResistanceΒ for yourself. And, as luck would have it,Β Midnight ResistanceΒ can be found in its Mega Drive incarnation on the Data East Collection 1Β cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system — so let’s take a closer look!

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Podcast

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 18 – Beakf*cker Gets Horizontal

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Hello! Welcome, once again, to The MoeGamer Podcast, featuring my erotic baritone (so I’m told) along with the fine pipes of my good friend Chris Caskie of MrGilderPixels.

The MoeGamer Podcast is available in several places. You canΒ subscribe to my channel on YouTube to stay up to date with both the video versions of the podcast and my weekly videos (including the Atari A to Z retro gaming series); you can follow on SoundcloudΒ for the audio-only version of the podcast; you canΒ subscribe via RSSΒ to get the audio-only version of the podcast in your favourite podcast app; or you canΒ subscribe via iTunes. Please do at least one of these if you can; it really helps us out!

Or you can hit the jump to watch or listen to today’s episode right here on MoeGamer.

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Features, Sega Ages

Sega Ages: Tant-R and Bonanza Bros

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It’s a double feature today, as the two games in question were bundled together as Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 6 on PlayStation 2 in Japan, and indeed remain as a single “unit” in the Sega Classics Collection we got here in the West.

Bonanza BrosΒ is a staple inclusion in most people’s Mega Drive libraries — indeed, it’s tended to find its way into most of the Mega Drive compilations for subsequent consoles over the years, too — butΒ Tant-RΒ may well be new to you, since prior to theΒ Sega Classics CollectionΒ release it was Japan-exclusive.

The Sega Ages versions of both games don’t radically reinvent anything to the same degree as Tamsoft’s take onΒ Monaco GP,Β but they remain solid games in their own right. So let’s take a closer look.

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Cover Games, Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog: Spinning Off

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This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
<< First | < Previous | Next > | Latest >>

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.

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Essentials, Mega Drive

Mega Drive Essentials: ToeJam and Earl

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Ah, the ’90s. The era of attitude. Or, more specifically, the era of everyone spontaneously and inexplicably wishing they were Californian.

Video games certainly weren’t exempt from this trend at all, though various different titles from the era took their attitude towards, uh, “‘tude” more seriously than others.

One noteworthy game from the early ’90s that simultaneously acknowledged the popularity of California-style attitude as well as poking fun at the inherent absurdity of it all — particularly the disconnect between your stereotypical video game nerd and what one would think of as a “cool dude” — was Johnson Voorsanger Productions’Β ToeJam & Earl, published by Sega for the Mega Drive in 1991.

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Essentials, Mega Drive

Mega Drive Essentials: Shadow Dancer

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What happened to ninjas? I feel like they were unironically cool in the ’90s, and that they were everywhere.

Perhaps they simply learned that being highly visible is not an especially desirable characteristic for a ninja, and thus deliberately relegated themselves to the world of overly tryhard “wacky!” memes alongside pirates, dinosaurs and zombies. Put them all together and you get LOL SO RANDOM, yo. And these days, everyone wants to ignore that nonsense. The perfect cover.

Anyway, here’sΒ Shadow DancerΒ for the Mega Drive, a 1990 release from Sega and one of the first games I ever played on the system.

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Essentials, Mega Drive

Sega Mega Drive Classics: Yes, It’s That Time Again

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You know a console generation has truly reached maturity when it gets a compilation of Mega Drive games.

Sega’s library of 16-bit classics must surely, by now, be some of the most frequently officially and legally emulated games of all time — and yet we keep getting these packages. And people keep buying them. People like, yes, me.

So is this latest bundle of games worth picking up? Well, read on and find out — and over the course of the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at the individual games in the compilation in more detail, too, through the Mega Drive Essentials column.

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Essentials, Mega Drive

Mega Drive Essentials: Fatal Labyrinth

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Roguelikes have been around for many years now, but in recent years we’ve seen an explosion in popularity of more accessible games that present a friendlier face to this notoriously obtuse genre.

Well-received Western indie titles such as Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, Dungeons of Dredmor, FTL and numerous others helped popularise (and, some may argue, dilute) the roguelike genre. At the same time, games such as One Way Heroics and the Mystery Dungeon series helped develop the genre in a distinctively Japanese direction.

But this development isn’t quite as recent as you might think. In fact, we’ve had accessible console-style roguelikes since the 16-bit era, though many may not have been aware of “roguelike” as a genre at the time. And a great — if particularly punishing — example can be found in the form of Sega’s Fatal LabyrinthΒ (akaΒ Shi no Meikyuu: Labyrinth of Death, no relation to Compile Heart’sΒ MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death)Β for Mega Drive.

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Essentials, Mega Drive

Mega Drive Essentials: Burning Force

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One of the best things about the Mega Drive — and one of the aspects that makes it a system so enjoyable to revisit — is the prevalence of unabashedly arcade-style games — and indeed arcade ports — in its catalogue.

Namco’s Burning Force is a particularly fun example that offers something a little different from the norm; while received with fairly mediocre reviews on its original release thanks to a superficial resemblance to Sega classic Space Harrier, looking back on it from a modern perspective reveals a pleasingly distinctive shoot ’em up that both looks and plays great even today.

Also it features a pretty girl in a neon pink leotard riding a transforming hoverbike. What’s not to like about that?

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