I have been reviewing games for a lomg time now, the first game I ever wrote a blog post about was Alien Storm for the MegaDrive/Genesis, so a year or so ago I revisited that game and had a look at it again. I also used to make YouTube Reviews at one point and one of the games I reviewed on there was Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday. It wasnt the first Megadrive game I reviewed on you tube that would be Comic Zone but it was one of my more successful reviews and its a game that I have always been very fond of. For a Start here is my original Video, if you want to see what I said back then.
It was one of only a handfull of games that I ever actually rented, In fact Megadrive wise I think I only ever rented about 4 games, all of these were before I owned an actual megadrive and were rented alongside a rental console. The main thing that drew me to it was the Buck Rogers name. I had often watched the old Buck Rogers show during the various times it was rerun on saterday afternoons, watching sci-fi like Buck Rogers, BattleStar Galactia, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Dr Who and Blakes 7 was the main way I spent time with my dad, heck watching sci-fi stuff pretty much is still our main way of hanging out with each other. Anyways I was well in the know about just how cool Buck Rogers was and how awesome his universe was and that made me go, I want a piece of that I want to shoot bad guys and go to space... I still think Buck is cool to this day even though I latter learned that he didnt swear on TV during a space dogfight like I believed he had as a kid. He asked a pilot if there was something wrong with your "Funk & Wagnals" which I heard as ''there is something wrong with your fucking wagnals'' no idea what a wagnal would be but I basically believed he was cussing the guy out and he was so cool he could get away with it during day time TV. (For those wondering what Funk &Wagnals means its basically an American brand of dictionairys and enclopedias, so its sort of a way of him saying hey do you know what your on about?)
I have to admit I didnt really know it was a role-playing game or exactly what I was getting myself into I think I just expected some shooting and well something simple that represented the show really. What I was met with was the ability to make my own team of individuals and to then enter a conflct in this world and eventually the ability to pilot my own ship around the universe more than this though I was met with a story which grabbed a hole of you and pulled you in to the universe itself. The funny thing was I had an Amiga in the house and as I have learned since this game was actually available on the Amiga and at the time I didnt realise this was the case and so Buck Rogers CountDown to Doomsday became one of the reasons I wanted a MegaDrive even more than before (I originally wanted a megadrive because my brothers friend brought a Japanese imported one to the house with a handful of games).
It wasnt till awhile latter that I had my own megadrive and got my own copy of this game, one of the reasons I felt I needed to make this youtube video was the fact that I could never get any of my friends to really respect this game in anyway shape or form yet I always felt that it was a real classic so I kind of saw it as my duty to be an embasador for it.
So do I think that everything I said in my review is accurate well mostly. I have since learned if you keep going into bars or generally loitering around in corners of space stations various things do happen such as you getting information or fights breaking out. Other than that I pretty much stand by everything, the graphics are very basic compared to other titles and proberbly did put people off which is a crying shame, on the plus side although with how basic they are they havent aged really from when I did this review, nice basic crisp graphics often age better than more experimental stuff, its why SNES games often kind of look better than N64 games to the modern eye for exmple. I still kind of see Mass Effect as the closist modern day equivalent but I still yearn for some kind of remake or sequel. Actually while talking about sequels there was a PC only sequel which I have heard mixed things about, its actually considerd abondend ware now so I have downloaded it and may download DOS Box and try to give it a bash at some point but its not like I have limitless bags of time for stuff like this, I wish some enterprising individuals had tried to use the engine behind Countdown to Doomsday to construct a MegaDrive Rom based on its PC sequel but that is something far beyond both my time and skill, as much as I love games I have never understood a thing when it comes to how they are made to the degree that as far as my brain understands they might as well be made by faires clapping or wizards waving there wands.
I would actually like to make another better youtube video about this game one day, the irony being that I now actually have better game recording equipment and I could proberbly get the wire to hook my megadrive up to it (I use a scart lead and the recording equipment requires a composite lead, my original footage was taken using a very old TV card and an RFU cable) but I dont feel like I have the time for it, so I guess for the time being this post is the closest thing to me tackling this awesome game again.
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