Tag Archives: Mega Drive

One-Shots

Super Hang-On and its two very different ways to play

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I must confess, I never played Hang-On or Super Hang-On a great deal back in the day; I always found motorcycles a little less interesting than cars, and the games always struck me as “the Sega racers that weren’t quite as good as OutRun”.

I recently picked up Super Hang-On for Mega Drive, though, and after an evening of playing pretty solidly, it was hard not to come to the conclusion that I’ve been missing out for all these years.

This is an excellent 16-bit racer, particularly in its home console incarnation, and I’m very glad I’ve finally added it to my collection.

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One-Shots

Castle of Illusion and the value of simple, short-form games

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For those following the ongoing saga of my gaming schedule, yesterday saw me break said schedule to go to Ikea with my wife.

I bought a new chair to go in my study, which contains all my retro consoles and computers, because I came to the conclusion that the “gamer chair” I picked up a while back (actually, my workplace at the time paid for it as part of working from home arrangements) actually wasn’t all that comfortable. And thus, given my renewed desire to enjoy my retro consoles, I thought it worthwhile to have something comfortable to sit on.

Naturally, having acquired a new chair in which to enjoy retro gaming action, it made sense to enjoy the remainder of the evening sitting in said chair enjoying retro gaming action. And I am happy to confirm that it is indeed very comfortable. So I call that a win. I also had a thoroughly pleasant couple of hours playing Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse on the Mega Drive in my new chair, so I also call that a win.

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Gaming on a Schedule

Gaming on a Schedule, Day 5: A spot of retro chopper action

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I must confess, it was tempting to spend my entire “retro” evening playing more Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition because it’s technically not breaking any rules, but after making it through some exhaustingly tough levels, I felt like I needed a bit of a break! And so it was off to the “retro room” upstairs with me, to bust out something on a piece of real hardware.

I quickly settled on LHX Attack Chopper for Sega Mega Drive, a recent acquisition that I’ve long been curious about. There was a surprising number of polygonal flight sims on the Mega Drive — mostly distributed by Electronic Arts through their “EA Air Force” brand — and while I was never expecting them to match up to equivalent sims on home computers, I’ve always wanted to give them a go.

After trying LHX Attack Chopper for a bit this evening, I’m keen to pick up the others if I can find them for a reasonable price.

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Evercade A to Z, Videos

Evercade A to Z: Tanzer

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You can dance if you want to, and leave your friends behind. In fact, you’ll have to, since Tanzer is a single-player game — and one of the most exciting games in the Evercade’s launch lineup.

Taking on the role of some sort of cybernetic ballet dancer fleeing a deadly plague, it’s your job to travel through time and beat the crap out of all manner of robotic and alien nasties. Why? Not sure. It’s fun, though, and very hard!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

Fatal Rewind

The Killing Game Show: The Only Way is Up

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fatalrewind-wide-header-3923218This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
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A couple of years after his first commercial video game Combat Crazy had failed to set the sales charts alight — despite being an enjoyable side-scrolling platform shooter — Bizarre Creations founder Martyn Chudley was back with another game, this time for 16-bit platforms.

The new title was known as The Killing Game Show, and was published on 16-bit home computers by a company called Psygnosis, which had been establishing a very solid reputation for itself since its inception in 1986. Not only was Psygnosis a spiritual successor to the legendary 8-bit developer-publisher Imagine Software, but it had also demonstrated right from the start that it was a company dedicated to high-quality, well-produced games that oozed class and style — on both the computer screen and on players’ shelves, too.

The Killing Game Show, developed by Chudley and a team working under the name Raising Hell Software, was an ideal fit for Psygnosis’ portfolio, featuring impressive visuals and solid but challenging gameplay to back them up. So let’s take a closer look.

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Evercade, Interplay Collection 2, 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 it even more 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 the Interplay Collection 2 cartridge on the Evercade retro gaming system.

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Evercade, Xeno Crisis and Tanglewood

Tanglewood: Outfoxed at Every Turn

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Following the initial batch of ten cartridges for the Evercade retro gaming platform, one of the releases that people were most excited for was cartridge number 11: a double pack featuring arena shooter Xeno Crisis and platformer Tanglewood.

We’ll get to Xeno Crisis in due course, but I wanted to make a point of looking at Tanglewood first. Because while Tanglewood was, like Xeno Crisis, a successful Kickstarter project that ended up being released on both Mega Drive and modern platforms, it’s Xeno Crisis that has had the lion’s share of attention to date. And you know how much I love an underdog. Or an underfox, in this case.

Fortunately, Tanglewood is a lovely game in its own right, so I’m glad I decided to give it a look first. Let’s explore together!

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Data East Collection 1, Evercade

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 release Midnight Resistance and not think of Konami’s Contra 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, Contra is by far the better known game, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore Midnight Resistance for yourself. And, as luck would have it, Midnight Resistance can be found in its Mega Drive incarnation on the Data East Collection 1 cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system — so let’s take a closer look!

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Evercade

A Warm Welcome to the Evercade

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Over the course of the last few years, retro gaming devices of various descriptions have become very popular.

Until now, these have tended to fall into one of two categories: emulation boxes that you can load up with your own collection of ROMs and enjoy to your heart’s content, or pre-curated systems with fixed libraries of games.

Evercade is different. Evercade provides a curated library of officially licensed cartridges that are distributed as packaged, physical products separately from the system itself. And somehow manufacturer Blaze managed to successfully launch this exciting new product in the midst of a world gone absolutely mad. So let’s take a first look at the system!

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Streets of Rage

Streets of Rage 3: The Most Notorious Localisation

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Ah, Streets of Rage 3. Probably the most notorious entry in the franchise due to how heavily it was altered between its original Japanese release as Bare Knuckle III and its Western incarnation.

Thankfully, modern compilations such as the Sega Mega Drive Classics collection make it very easy to access the Japanese version — though it’s worth taking a look at the Western release too for an extreme example of what unnecessary localisation due to external pressure looks like.

Let’s hit the streets once again!

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