SEGA’s Mascot Sonic the Hedgehog’s Most Excellent and Ultimate Sega Genesis Game Collection Compilation

It kind of is, though.

 

So, I’ve been playing this lately, and it’s really great!

For some reason, old school compilations like this have escaped me until now. Well, that’s not entirely true. I own Sonic Mega Collection and Mega Man Anniversary Collection for Gamecube, but other than that I never bought any of the hundred million of these things that came out for the PS2. Are they all as good as this? I doubt it.

First of all, the selection of games in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection is both enormous and comprehensive. You’ve got:

- Every single Sonic related Genesis game (seven total)
- All three Golden Axe games
- All three Streets of Rage games(!)
- All four Phantasy Star games(!!)
- The three Shining games
- Both Vectormans (Vectormen?)
- Both Eccos
- And THIRTY-TWO other ones, including classics like Ristar, Decap Attack, Dynamite Headdy and Shinobi

Forty-nine total games, yo. That’s a lot for $29.99. Oh wait, that’s what it cost originally. Now it’s about $15 on Amazon with free shipping. So $0.30 a game.

At that price, just the games would be enough, obviously, but there’s a lot of TLC in this package, too. The menus are slick and easy to navigate. There’s snarky little descriptions and fun facts about each game, clearly written by a knowledgable fan with a sense of humor about the whole thing. And these write-ups accompanied by hi-res, viewable scans of the box art, which is cool. The games themselves can be played in widescreen and there’s even an optional smoothing effect you can turn on if you’re a idiot and want the sprite art to be completely ruined for you. Save states too, for WEAKLINGS. (like me )

One of the best parts about the package, though, is how they implemented the achivements/trophies.  Maybe my expectations were set a little low, but I was pretty surprised at how varied and fun to get they were. They range from simple (Complete Mission 2 in E-SWAT) to more involved (Play Streets of Rage with all three characters) to murderously difficult (Beat Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine). So basically, you’ll stumble upon a good deal just screwing around with the various games, but there’s a number of them that you’ll have to actively try for. It’s a good balance, and that’s key, because the game’s extras are tied directly to the achievements. Once, uh…achieved, most will also unlock a developer interview or another playable Sega title, including Master System and coin-op arcade games. Oh, and they were clearly named by that same guy who wrote the funny game summaries. Very rewarding.

So, if you’re interested in any of these games or the Sega Genesis in general, please buy this. It’s got a ton of classic gameplay, it’s an absolutely outstanding value (especially now) and it was obviously made with a lot of love. What other game of this generation can you say all that about?

Study Up, Son! – Chrontendo

Have you heard of Chrontendo? I hadn’t either until a couple weeks ago, when 1UP’s Bob Mackey did exactly what I’m doing right now and wrote a blog entry celebrating its many splendors. Feel free to stop reading this and just go over to his blog instead, if you want. I’m probably about to say all the same stuff about it anyway, and he’s a professional video game writer, so…

Anyway, Chrontendo is an expansive video series in which one very knowledgable dude called ”Dr. Sparkle” sits down, plays, and talks about every single Famicom/NES game ever in the order of their release. Yep, all of them. He also gets into the development of the system, its place within video game history, its competitors, localization quirks and the individual stories of the various developers and publishers behind the titles we know and love (and the zillion that we don’t). He’s managed to find a perfect ratio of breadth to depth here, covering about 15 games per hour-long episode, and he’s currently 42 episodes deep.

I’m only on episode 12 at this point, but I’ve been really, really enjoying it so far. As you may know, I was a kid of the 16-bit generation, and I was juuuuust too young to have been able to enjoy the salad days of the NES’ dominance. Watching these videos is like an awesome, entertaining history lesson–a fully narrated encyclopedia of the industry’s resurgence and biggest creative boom. It’s a lot of fun to see the stories of these developers and franchises that we still celebrate today; to watch them take their first tentative steps out of the primordial ooze of arcade and computer development, and into the new frontier of home consoles.

Dr. Sparkle himself seems like a pretty cool guy, too. He’s exactly the sort of super-nerd I would want hosting something like this–studious, respectful, unpretentious, but with a dry humor that only peeks through when called for. Not to mention he really, really knows his shit.

So, if you’re interested at all, you need to check it out. Go here (thanks again to Bob Mackey) for the older entries if you want to start from the beginning, and also check out Dr. Sparkle’s current blog, which I linked to at the beginning of the post. Also, please note that he has started similar series covering the Sega Master System and the TurboGrafx. Those are sure to be awesome as well.

P.S.: Another big reason this series appeals to me: I kinda wanted to do something like this myself at one point. Being that the NES is such a big hole in my vidya knowledge base, I felt like eventually I should make an effort to just play every game and journal it in some form here. I was thinking it would be mostly for laughs, with me being amusingly baffled by weird old bad games, etc., etc., har har har. Obviously, Chrontendo is infinitely more useful and entertaining than me being all LOOK HOW SILLY THESE GRAPHICS ARE, LOL GUYS for 800 straight posts or whatever. Maybe someday I’ll find something to do here that isn’t completely redundant.

Oh Hey, Looks Like the 3DS is Breaking Records or Something

Sorry I haven’t been posting recently! Real life has been getting all up in my business in ways that I promise you don’t care about. Apologies all around.

But you know what? I hardly have to write anything anymore because it turns out that (as with my last entry) someone is already out there doing it much better. Here’s a great piece from Tiny Cartridge about how the 3DS is wrecking shit and how, five months ago, every single news outlet covering video games was run by gibbering retards. Toldja so. Please enjoy.

Several Months Later… – Tiny Cartridge

P.S.: Rhythm Heaven Fever is the Game of the Year and that’s all there is to it. Xenoblade has its work cut out for it.

Something Awful Sums Up Mass Effect 3 and BioWare’s Problems Pretty Succinctly

I’ve come to realize that Dennis Farrell’s bi-weekly “Video Game Article” on Something Awful is actually one of the more reliable gaming columns out there. Not only is really, really funny most of the time, but his “One-Sentence Reviews” are generally spot-on and less predictable than you might think.

This week, he discusses recent Mass Effect 3 developments and hypothesizes about how this horrifying train wreck could get even more grisly. He’s better at it than I am.

BioWare…Just…STOP

Un-fucking-real

Mass Effect stalwarts, I’m sorry to just slap you across the face with that picture, there, but I really don’t know how to preface it effectively. The part on the right is courtesy of the official Mass Effect 3 art book, from which some wonderful tidbits have just started creeping out onto the web.

So, yeah. Even the SHIP’S COMPUTER is getting all sexed up in this stupid game. I always thought her ‘mouth’ was a tad suggestive in ME2 but I guess I should have been commending them for their subtlety and restraint. How in the HELL are they going to justify giving her a body, let alone one that looks like that? My God, every SINGLE piece of news that comes out about this game is so, so insulting.

Just read that blurb there. “EDI’s body needed to be sexy, chrome, and robotic…”

STOP. STOP. STOP. You guys, seriously. Get a grip.

Also, are you really comparing yourselves to Metropolis?

And just in case you thought that was the only retarded new squad member…

Oh hai Shepard

What? Who’s that? New alien race?

No, that’s a Prothean, apparently. Remember what they looked like in ME1? Because it seems like BioWare doesn’t! Also, how could they possibly explain that a member of an omniscient race that has been extinct for 50,000 years is ready to suit up in some Demon’s Souls armor and run around playing guns with you? When the previous games implied that their forms, motives and technology were beyond human comprehension?

I know this is all super nerdy quibbling-about-the-lore or whatever, and God knows I don’t want to do that, but come on. Every DAY there is a new story about some leaked plot detail or new game option or choice from the previous game that actually isn’t going to matter after all…the bad decisions are just piling up so high.

They sold the original game to us as the first part of a sprawling, dynamic story that would pay off for sticking with it. Every time they pull some shady retcon or hugely alter the gameplay mechanics between entries or sex up old characters for no reason besides pandering, it feels like such a CHEAT to me.

Mass Effect was an outstanding, slightly flawed, but ultimately fresh and rewarding experience. Mass Effect 2 was a prompt about-face-and-then-flying-leap in the opposite direction. Right now, Mass Effect 3 looks to be boarding a Concorde Jet for a non-stop flight along that same, errant vector with the final destination in a goddamn black hole of bullshit.

Today’s Sign of the Apocalypse: There’s a Rumor About the New Xbox Locking Out Used Games

You may have noticed that, despite the title of this blog, I seem to enjoy enough new video games to write positive things about them on a regular basis. I think about it a lot. Over the last couple of months especially, I’ve found myself looking at the name up at the top there (or my mission statement page) and bristling at the negativity of it. My understanding of the industry has matured in the couple of years since I started this, and there are days when I feel like a change to the tone here is warranted.

That change may yet come, but it certainly won’t be today. Read this piece at Wired’s Game|Life if–like me–you need a good renewing of your hatred for the console landscape.

P.S.: Obviously, this is just a rumor right now (and a fairly far-fetched one), but I want to put it out there–here and now–that I will never purchase nor play by choice any console designed with this feature. I know that that doesn’t matter to anyone out there besides me, but I’m just making it a matter of public record. I have a Herzogian steadfastness to keeping my word about shit like this.

Tactics Ogre Has Good Art

THIS WORLD CAN BE SET TO RIGHTS

 

Someday I’ll talk a little more about how Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is the best game of 2011, but for now I just wanted to share this image with you. For some reason, the art from this game is really tough to find on the Internet. This is a comparison of the original character art, their accompanying sprites in the SNES/PSX version, and the updated PSP remake. I don’t remember where I got this picture, unfortunately, so I can’t credit the person who compiled it all. Props to them, though.