The top 5 Retro games in my collection I could never sell

I talk to lots of people who buy or have retro games and we all seem to collect slightly different things, some people are into RPG's or the games of a certain studio or for a set platform, some peoples collections are in the process of growing others have started to downsize, some people have even quit collecting and then started again. On one of the forums I am on I thought it would be a good thing to discuss the games in peoples collections that people simply wouldn't be able to say goodbye to for one reason or another.

I wanted to think of ten games I own that I could simply not get rid  of but this proved tough so I decided Id start with 5 to get the ball rolling and then I could return to this topic in the future.

The number one game I could not get rid of is World of Illusion on the MegaDrive, the reason I couldnt get rid of it is purly sentimental, I dont really think it has that much worth money wise and I dont think its particularly a rare game but to me it holds huge sentimental value.  I can remember getting it for Christmas from my parents, I can remember how excited I  was the first time I played it and I have many happy memories of playing it with my mum who unfortunately passed away about 6 years ago. As silly as it might sound selling it would be like selling part of her, it would be like parting with a family heirloom and its not something I am prepaired or willing to do. I miss my mum a lot all of the time but even playing this game for a few minutes reminds me of how blessed I was to have her in my life and not only what a great mum she was but also how much fun we always had togther.

The second game I wouldnt want to get rid of is Fire Emblem for the GBA. Yes a fully boxed Pal copy of this game might be hard to come by and costly and this does feed into the reason im going to hold on to thid game tightly but theres a little more to it than that.  I got this game from a carboot for £5 complete back when the GBA was pretty current, I have to admit that as far as I remember I didn't have a clue what it was, I played it and instantly fell in love with it, it reminded me of Vandal Hearts  which I had previously rented on PS1 and extremly enjoyed. As far as it goes with this game I love the way it plays I find it extremly replayable, im really happy I didnt pay much for it and it sparked a love for a whole series of games which still burns brightly within me more than this though its the purchase that reminds me of many happy carboot trips and for me is like a symbol of my collection, and of the way I go about collecting games.

Number three is yet another Fire Emblem game, this time it is Fire Emblem Path of Radience , I first played this game when a buddy lent it me not long after release. He basically played it none stop, then lent it to me and I played it none stop and then we talked about the plot and characters loads. It was one of those games that I knew I would play through a whole bunch of times and that I needed to purchse it. So I kept my eyes open and looked for it all over the place, even when it was relativly new it wasnt exactly an easy game to get hold of, eventually I found a second hand copy in a local branch of GameStation and I purchased it for £20 and then a friend stole it, I struggled and struggled to get another copy which cost me £40 , its the game which actually stopped me letting people lend games from me. I guess I have it now and even if I ultimatly paid £60 as I had to buy it twice lots of people have paid a heck of a lot more for this game and with the amount I have played it the game has certainly been worth every penny.

The 4th game is The Punisher on Megadrive, lots and lots of happy memories of playing this with my brother, we were like best friends but we have drifted apart, this reminds me of the good old days. To be honest I wouldnt really want to get rid of any of my walk along beat em up games because its one of my favourate genresbut this is particularly true of the rare ones which would be incredibly hard to get again.

The 5th game I wouldnt ever want to get rid of would be Xcom Enemy Unknown for the PS1 , my whole friend group played this when I was younger and we chatted about it loads. My favourite person to compare notes with now lives in America, playing it is not only enjoyable it makes me think of our friendship.It was really funny as in the early stages of the game id use a certain tactic which would drive him up the wall, he always refered to  it as me cheating. So what did I do that was so bad? Well basically when I was on a mission with a tiny alien spaceship that had landed I would get a solider and make him prime a grenade, I would then have him walk into the alien craft knowing that he would be instantly gunned down but his grenade would then explode at the end of the turn killing the aliens inside, winning me the mission and securing me a tonne of things to sell and research, id sacrafice this one dude and it would really get the ball rolling. My friend would refuse to let anyone purposly die but would meanwhile loose loads of soldiers engaging in fair warfare with the Alien menace, my tactics might have worked better but if theres ever a real alien war id sooner he be my commanding officer than someone like me, just incase im the one holding the grenades.

My Retro Purchases in December 2018

 I started my retro purchasing on the 3rd by getting 5 Megadrive carts for £5. Four of  them are sports titles though but I cant moan really, The games are Fifa 95, Fifa 96, NHLPHA 93, Olympic Summer games and Mega Games 6 (the one with World cup italia 90, super hang on, street of rage, the revenge of shinobi, columns and Golden axe) it was a lisiting on a face book sales group and in total honesty it is that last cart which is the real diamond in the rough in this little lot

On the 8th of Decemember I went in to a little indy store and grabbed a few bits. I got Virtual soccer for the SNES cart only for £2, Nigel Mansells world championship racing for the snes cart only for £2, Fifa for the megadrive cart only for £1, madden 2000 for the Gameboy Colour cart only for 50p and World Soccer for the Master system complete for £2... Nothing amazing but it was still fun to go and have a look at what they had on offer and bring a little bit of something home.

On the 16th I grabbed two loose SNES carts  from an indy store for £14 for the both of them. I think I maybe have Star Wars somewhere but I am darn happy to get Power Rangers as not only did I love watching it when it came out but its basically a walk along beat em up which is right up my alley.

On the 20th of this month I went to an indy games shop after work and I got Tactics Orge Premium Edition complete for £8 including its art book and soundtrack cd.

While there I also grabbed a cartridge only copy of Rock n Roll Racing for the SNES an all time childhood favourate of mine for £15, despite being a relatily costly one this is proberbly my purchased of the month just because I really love this game and have been after a SNES copy for a long time ( I have a complete Megadrive copy and have had it for years but I just really really wanted it on the SNES

On the 29th I grabbed The Rescue of Princess Blobette for GameBoy cart only for £2 and Game And Watch Gallery for GameBoy cart only for 50pence

So in total I spent £52 on retro games this month which was quiet a suprising amount for me, I really didnt expect to spend this sort of money in Decemember. The thing I am most happy about getting is probably Rock n Roll Racing for the SNES as I used to play that a whole heck of a lot as a kid and its something I have kind of been casually hunting for a long time. I guess by using the term casually hunting I need to explain what I mean by that, basically I have been looking for it without just doing the lazy thing of jumping on ebay and paying whatever I needed to pay to just get it.

My retro Game Purchases for October 2018

OK so my retro purchases started on the 1st of October when I got a copy of Mytran Wars for the psp in a case with its manual but with the cover missing for  £1.99.  I also walked into a charity shop and managed to get the Japanese soundtrack to Metal Gear Solid (the first one) for 50pence, not exactly a game but id still class it as a retro game collection item.

On the 4th I Visited an indy shop and had a little spending spree. I got Final Fantasy Tactics for GBA cart only for £8, 2 unofficial and 1 official PS1 memory cards for 50pence each, Go Vacation complete for the Wii for £3 and ford street racing LA duel complete for psp for £1.

On the 7th I went into a branch of CEX and grabbed two psp games both complete for the combined total of £3 these games were Modnation racers and everybodys golf 2

On the 11th I grabbed a complete Japanese copy of Ghost Busters for the megadrive for £10. It seemed a darn good price and a pretty excellent time to grab it given what month it is.

On the 12th I went to a pawn store I sometimes visit and for £11 I managed to grab 4 loose N64 carts, WCW NWO Revenge, Ridge Racer 64, Ready to rumble boxing, and NBA hang time and then 3 boxed complete original Xbox games, Spider-man 2, House of the Dead 3 and 007 from Russia with love.

On the 14th I got Capcom Puzzle World for the PSP for £3.50 from an indy game shop, I had seen this before but never paid much attention and certainly didn't realize it had the Pang/Buster Bros games on it.

On the 16th of October I went in to a charity shop and I managed to grab Metal Gear Solid 3 complete for the PS2 for 50pence and Resident Evil 4 special edition complete for the PS2 for 50pence

On the 17th I got 6 football games for the PS1 all complete for £3 for all of them. Sure football games are not worth much or the most interesting thing in the world but they all have perfect discs and I just couldn't leave them.

On the 30th I went to a few charity shops and managed to grab a complete copy of resident evil for the GameCube for £1 and a complete copy of Smackdown vs Raw 2007 for psp for £1.

Finally on the last day of the month I grabbed a few bits and pieces from a pawn store. I grabbed MX Superfly complete for the GameCube for £1, International Superstar Soccer cart only for the SNES for £2 and 3 original Xbox games for 50pence GoldenEye Rogue Agent, The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay, and Midway Arcade Treasures.

So in total I spent £53.99 this month on Retro Games which is a pretty slow month for me but in fairness the last few months I have tried to curb my spending a little bit and with Christmas fast approaching I dont expect things to really change, but who knows, if something good jumps in front of me then I am most likly going to grab it. I suppose my favourate purchase of the month is my Japanese copy of Ghost Busters for the MegaDrive not only because its an awesome game but also because its the exact same region/version I grabbed as a youngster so its very nostalgic for me.

My Retro Purchases July 2018

I started my retro purchasing on the 5th of July, when I picked up Tecmo world wrestling for the NES cart only for £2.50 and fight night round 2 for the original Xbox complete for £1.

While I was on holiday at the seaside I picked up  Warzone 2100 (Value Series) for the PlayStation complete for £1, Fluid for the PlayStation complete for £1, Star Trek: Invasion for the PlayStation complete for £1 and TOCA Touring Car Championship for the PlayStation complete for £. I think it would have been around the 13th but I didn't bother making a note of the fact I had gotten them until I got back home on the 16th so not exactly sure when I got them but it was from a weird little shop which mostly seemed to  repair disability scooters but had side lines in all kinds of other kinds of bits of this and that.

 On the 18th I I grabbed Yu-Gi-Oh The Falsebound Kingdom for Gamecube boxed with manual for £15, yeah it was from a CEX but I asked to see the disc first and checked that everything was genuine no reprinted fronts or anything like that. I have to admit I honestly don't get why people harp on about them doing that so much, seriously if your into your retro games then don't you look long and hard at what your looking at investing in before you do it? On the same day I also nipped into a charity shop and got Robot Warlords for the PS2 complete for 50pence.

On the 22nd I grabbed  Motorbike King complete for the PS2 for 10pence and Kickboxing Knockout for the PS1 missing manual for 50pence, yeah neither of them are titles which will set the world on fire but I kind of have a soft spot for some of the cheap budget stuff you could get your hands on for the playstation and playstation 2.

On the 25th I recieved Thunder Pro Wreslting Gaiden for the Sega Megadrive Japanese through the post it is complete and including postage it cost me £10 . I have meant to grab this for awile as its basically the megadrves version of Fire Pro Wrestling and from what I hear it was nearly turned into an American wrestling game called Jesse "The Body" Ventura Wrestling Superstars. I also went into a charity shop and grabbed WWE Crush Hour for the Gamecube complete for 15pence, Sensible Soccer 2006 complete for the ps2 for 15pence and Disney's stitch experiment 626 boxed but missing manual for 15pence.

 

 

I finished the month of today by grabbing Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, Kirby Epic Yarn, and The Legend of Spyro dawn of the dragon for wii all complete for £18 and then popping into a charity shop and getting Mercenaries 2 for the ps2 complete for £1 and Air Raid 3 for the PS2 complete for £1.

 

 

 

 

 So this month in total I spent £54.05 which I am actually pretty happy with as I have been trying to limit the amount of stuff I buy and have actually resisted buying a lot of things. I am a little bit dissapointed that this blog seems to have decended into little more than a place where I talk about my recent purchases. I fully admit the place has been very low on content for the last few months and if anyone follows me I appologise. In all honesty I think I have burned myself out a little bit. I was reviewing games and making YouTube videos and had become involved in a podcast all during which time I was trying my best to be there for others, hopefully things will turn around a little bit in another month or so.

Retro Game purchases: April 2018

So its the fourth month of the year and once again as always I have been tracking how much I have been spending on retro games. The first month was an expensive one, with the second not being too bad, the third being average and well as for the 4th? Well if you want to know that then I guess your going to have to read this post.

Well on the 5th of the month I got my first purchase and it was a Japanese N64 which cost me £15, it was just the system no pads or wires as I planed to take those from a spare European machine I had. On the same day I also got a boxed complete Japanese copy of G.A.S.P which I paid £5 for and an American N64 cart of Rogue Squadron which I spent a further £5 on. The first thing I did was to go inside the Japanse N64 and alter the insides of the cartridge slot so that it would play Japanese and American games.

I went on to order a few more Japanese carts these were Choro Q, Mario Kart, Blast Dozer and a boxed copy of Human Grand Prix which cost me £20 in total which had all arrived by about the 18th of the month. A few days later on the 20th I would spend £3.40 on a Japanese cart only copy of 1080 snowboarding and then on the 23rd I would get an orange memory cover for the N64 which I had ordered, basically I got this so I would know my Japanese system from my regular pal ones instantly on first glance, it cost me £1.50. So this means I spent £49.90 on getting into Import N64 gaming this month. I already owned carts of Kirby and Flying Dragon Japanese which I had previously used with an import convertor so I guess I know have myself a nice little 9 cart import N64 collection.

On the 22nd I made my first none N64 Retro purchase of the month when I grabbed 4 complete PS2 games for 50p each today Shrek superslam, Super Monkeyball Deluxe, Monsters inc scare island and IronMan. 

 

On the 26th I did a little shopping at some retro indy stores after work and managed to grab Grandia (Unisoft exclusive edition) complete for PS1 for £15 and Captain America and the Avengers (American Genesis version) complete for megadrive £20. In honesty I think these two were my joint favorite purchases of the month.

So this month I spent £86.90 but this doesn't seem much really when there was a retro console purchase in the mix. I have been getting rid of a lot of none game related stuff I no longer need as I acknowledge the fact that what I buy takes up room and I kind of have plans to buy less, but I guess we will need to see how this goes, only time will tell.

150 Mega Drive games reviewed #5: Atomic Runner (aka Atomic Runner Chelnov)

There was an arcade game called Chelnov – or to give it its full title Atomic Runner Chelnov – Tatakau Ningen Hatsudensho, which would translate as Atomic Runner Chelnov Fighting Human Power Plant. It’s a bit of a mouthful right? It was developed and published by Data East in 1988.

 

My Atomic Runner Megadrive Review 

 

One of the things I love is when a game has a big history behind it, mostly because sometimes the stories which exist in the background of a games history can be very interesting and almost as worthy of note as the games themselves. This is one area in which Atomic Runner Chelnov certainly delivers.

There was a heap of controversy surrounding this game’s original arcade release. With the Russian-style hammer and sickle being present on the title screen, the fact the game’s story/the main character Chelnov’s origin is that he received his power due to a nuclear explosion and his exposure to the radiation. And on top of this the fact his name is spelt very closely to how Chernobyl, the site of a real life nuclear disaster, is written in Japanese (チェルノブ and チェルノブイ. Well, when you throw all of this together it is easy to see how this game got some major attention in a bad way. After all when you basically base your game on a disaster – in this case the Chernobyl disaster – just a year and a half after it happened you’re clearly going to annoy people. Just imagine if you took the last high school shooting or terrorist bomb incident and started producing a game on it now and made the dots pretty easy for anyone with half a brain to connect. You’d basically be asking for a lot of fuss and controversy, wouldn’t you?

The arcade game was ported to the Mega Drive in 1992, but it wasn’t a straight conversion, in fact there were a lot of alterations. The Japanese version kept the same name as the arcade version, but in Europe and North America it was released with the much simpler title Atomic Runner. The game’s plot was also altered. Chelnov was no longer a coal miner caught in a nuclear blast. Instead he was a regular guy wearing a special advanced combat suit the whole nuclear angle was removed. In fact basically the whole story was changed.

I will quickly run down this version of the game’s story in all of its B-movie glory. Chelnov was a young scientist who worked with and lived with his father and sister. They lived a happy and peaceful life and then one night when Chelnov went for a jog he heard a huge explosion coming from the direction of his home. He ran back home to find his father barely conscious, with Chelnov’s father’s dying breath he explained beings called the Deathtarians had caused the explosion and that they were a species who had ruled over the Earth long before the dawn of mankind and that they had returned now to claim what once was theirs. Apparently Chelnov’s father had known about them all along and that’s what all of his and his family’s research was for. Chelnov’s father points towards a metal case saying that inside the case there is a suit – a suit which will increase a human’s power making him a super human and inside the suit there are various weapons and devices. Chelnov’s father also tells him that he must put on the suit and defeat the Deathtarians and not only does the fate of the world lay in his hands but also the fate of his sister who they have kidnapped. With this Chelnov’s father passes away and with this Chelnov puts on the suit and becomes the atomic runner. You would think the game starts here, but no, it goes on to tell you Chelnov was overwhelmed by the share number of Deathtarians and became their prisoner. He was then tortured in an attempt to brainwash him, just as they thought they had broken his will though he lashed out in anger and broke free.

Now I like a B-movie plot as much as the next guy but I do have to admit I actually think the plot is a little heavier than it needs to be. Yeah there are a million games and films where someone killed someone’s dad or kidnapped someone close to the main character but do we really need to give the player/main character three reasons to hate the game’s villains? Surley either the killed father, the kidnapped sister or the imprisonment and torture on their own would have been enough reason to explain why Chelnov wanted to defeat the bad guys, we didn’t really need to throw cliché on top of cliché did we?

So, you start the actual game by breaking out of an alien facility. The game plays like a run and gun game, except it’s auto-scrolling. This kind of makes it feel unique compared to your usual run and gunner and in honesty I find the fact it’s always pushing you forward as opposed to letting you kind of just stand about adds to the game’s arcade feel. There are a variety of weapons and power-ups to collect, a whole bunch of enemies to kill, some pretty awesome bosses, and so much more.

The game’s controls can best be described as interesting. So what can you do in your super powered suit? Well you can fire right, you can fire left and you can jump. You need to fire backwards and forwards as enemies will come at you from both directions. As previously mentioned your always travelling forwards, you can move further forwards on the screen but as its always scrolling forwards you can’t go backwards. An interesting thing is as well as shooting enemies you can also jump on them in order to harm them, when you do this you will hurt them and simultaneously bounce off of them as well, in this way you can sort of bounce from enemy to enemy. Also, when you are jumping, if you land on top of an enemy you’ll bounce off and do damage, instead of dying. This is a key mechanic. But be sure you’re jumping! If an enemy hits you from below while you’re on the ground, you’ll die. Your boots only provide invulnerability when you’re not touching the ground, evidently, for whatever reason. This definitely can be frustrating, when you try to jump on an enemy under the floor but just miss and they come up under you and kill you. Jumping on enemies can be a little hairy, but you’ve got to do it. This is the only controls-related complaint I have with the game. Jumping on enemies mostly works fine, but could have been done a little better. Its important to note you die in one hit, be this a hit from a bullet or physical contact with an enemy (well, apart from the contact of your jumping boot with an enemies head). There’s no shield. When you die, you get sent back to the last checkpoint. Fortunately this game has a fair few checkpoints, so you don’t usually lose too much progress. The game is pretty darn hard with its one hit death, but this is helped by the large amount of checkpoints and also the fact if you keep dying without making progress then the game will put more powerful power ups in front of you to try and help you. It still is a hard game and this doesn’t totally negate that but it does make things a little bit more bearable at times. The game is one of those old games which is actually rather short, its difficulty kind of makes it seem longer than it is. In all honesty if the game was easier then you would simply fly through it.

The graphics for this game are a little hit and miss. As far as its arcade conversion status goes, I would argue that the graphics here are actually an improvement over its arcade cousin, yet they’re still not that great compared to some other things you will find on the Mega Drive. Everything does run smoothly though and I actually like a lot of the changes that were made to the Mega Drive version. One thing I have to say is the backgrounds are a heck of a lot more interesting and detailed on the Mega Drive and you do get lots of enemies on screen at once. I need to give this game a huge shout-out when it comes to its soundtrack. It’s just dripping with quality tunes which do help make the game more enjoyable than it would otherwise be. I found this game was a little better when running at 60hz. Maybe it’s just me but it just seemed to work a little better when running faster and the music sounded better at that rate as well.

OK so if I am to score this game what am I going to give it? Well I would give it seven out of 10. It’s a good enjoyable challenging but short game. I don’t think it’s a world changer or a real classic and to be honest I think with its history it almost makes a better story than it does a game. I would warn you though if you are not the kind of person who can cope with frequently dying and just getting that little bit further each time then this is probably not the game for you. If you want to buy it then boxed copies tend to sit around the £35 mark with loose cartridges being about £15 when I have seen them.

150 Mega Drive. Genesis games reviewed #4: Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday

I have been reviewing games, writing blogs and making YouTube videos for quite a long time now, and there are a few games which I have found myself repeatedly returning to. One of these is Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday.

 

I made a YouTube video about it many years ago and I have talked about it several times on my blog. I guess there is some reason that I keep returning to it. Even before all of this I have had a long history with this game it was one of only a handful of games that I ever actually rented for one. In fact, Mega Drive-wise I think I only ever rented about four games. All of these were before I owned an actual Mega Drive and were rented along with a rental console.

My New Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday review Video

The main thing that drew me to Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday was the name. I grew up watching the old Buck Rogers show when it was rerun on Saturday afternoons, as well as Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Doctor Who and Blake’s 7. Watching science fiction shows and movies was the main way I spent time with my dad. Usually he would get home from working long, hard hours and he wouldn’t have the energy left to play ball or do something like that so we would watch science fiction. Heck, watching sci-fi stuff pretty much is still our main way of hanging out with each other.

So basically I was in the know about just how cool a certain Buck Rogers was and how awesome his universe was and that made me want a piece of that – I wanted to shoot bad guys and go to space. I still think Buck is cool to this day even though I later learned that he didn’t swear on TV during a space dogfight like I believed he had when I was a kid. (During an episode of the show he asked a pilot if there was something wrong with his ‘Funk & Wagnalls’ which I heard as ‘there is something wrong with your fucking wagnalls’. No idea what a wagnall would be, but I basically believed he was cussing the guy out and he was so cool he could get away with it during daytime TV. For those wondering what Funk & Wagnalls means its basically an US brand of dictionaries and encyclopaedias, so it’s a way of him saying ‘hey, do you know what you’re on about?’.)

OK, that’s enough about me and the TV show lets move on to the game. Well the game was an RPG set in the Buck Rogers universe. It was developed by Strategic Simulations and published by Electronic Arts and it came out in 1991. During the Mega Drive’s glory years EA was responsible for porting a large number of games across to the Mega Drive from the PC and Amiga. Personally I think this was a great thing as it opened up console players to a world of games which had previously been merely the domain of home computer users.

Buck Rogers was made on a very famous game engine called Gold Box which was used for the classic Dungeons & Dragons series of games from the 80s and 90s. If you’ve played any of the Forgotten Realms games then you will have played something which uses this engine. I have to admit that when I hired it I didn’t know that it was a RPG in all honesty, I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into I think I just expected some action type of game a bit of shooting and well something a lot simpler than this.

What I was met with was the ability to make my own team of individuals and to then enter a conflict which was taking place in the world from one of my favourite TV shows. From this point on though the game was just this gift that kept on giving. To go back to the beginning you start the game by making a party of six characters. It’s all based on dice rolls really. You make the characters one at a time and you do it by choosing the character’s races, genders and classes, and then you basically do a digital dice roll for HP, attack power, defence, etc. You can do this again and again though until you get the result you want. Then you name your creation, choose an on-screen sprite to represent them and finally use some assigned points to train them in the skills of your choices, including things such as tactics, perception, stealth, demolition, etc. If you’re anything like me then you will probably rip names off from other games or TV shows. I frequently used names like Kirk and Spock when growing up as well as the names of various Transformers. Still it helps the game in the long run because you get really attached to the little guys and cant stand the thought of them dying. Very few games have made me feel this close to my characters and this concerned for their welfare and those games would be games from the X-COM and Fire Emblem lines.

At first after having made my squad of six I was walking around an isometric game environment getting into random battles which are handled in a turn-based way. First you move and attack and then the enemy does the same and this repeats until someone has won the battle. After each battle you have the chance to root through your enemies remains in the hopes of finding something good in the spoils of war or just grabbing absolutely everything so you can sell it later.

When I had finished a couple of missions and I was given the ability to pilot my own ship around the universe well that’s when the game really began to open up. It really stopped feeling like just a game and became a sort of second life in the way that only the best games do. The story grabbed a hold of me and pulled me 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 but at the time I didn’t realise this was the case and so Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday became one of the reasons I wanted a Mega Drive even more than before. (I originally wanted a Mega Drive because my brother’s friend brought a Japanese imported one to the house with a handful of games.)

I think I need to talk at least a little about the game’s sound and graphics, so let’s start with the sound. The music is rather basic. In fact most of it is made up of very short repeating tunes which a lot of people would probably find repetitive. In all honesty though I kind of like the music. Yes, it’s basic. Yes, it’s repetitive but it also fits the tone of the game. It’s action packed and dramatic when it needs to be. There are a lot of different sound effects. Each and every weapon has its own crack, buzz or sizzle noise – a rocket pistol sounds different to a laser pistol, for instance. There is even a tiny bit of digitised speech here and there in the game which for its time and a game of this scope on a cart has to be admired. The graphics are about as basic as you can get, but they work. They are basic but highly functional and full of little nice touches. There are some great still frame comic-style scenes shown at certain points to tell the game’s story.

With this game being a strategy game I didn’t really notice any difference when trying this game at 50hz and then 60hz.  I guess the speed difference is more of a deal when playing games which have a fast pace to them.

It is time to score the game. I am going to give this game 10 out of 10. Yes the graphics could have been better and the music could have been better, but the game itself is so good that once you get into it none of this matters. This game is one of a kind on the system, there is nothing else quite like it and I recommend this to everyone. I kind of see this game as a sort of Mass Effect for the Mega Drive as the games although differing in style are in fact kind of similar in feel.

I would have loved this game to either get a sequel or a updated remake on a later console. Actually while talking about sequels there was a PC only sequel which I have heard mixed things about. It’s actually considered abandoned ware now so you can download it and play it on your PC using DOS Box. I do wish though that some enterprising individuals would try to use the engine behind Countdown to Doomsday to construct a Mega Drive rom based on its PC sequel. I know someone will say why don’t you do it if you’re so into the game 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 fairies clapping or wizards waving there wands.

If you fancy giving the game a bash yourself then you can expect to pay around £10 for a loose cart, with boxed copies usually starting at about £15. If you keep your eyes open. I really feel this game is worth the cash and worth your time.

150 Mega Drive games reviewed #3: Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude!

My first memory of Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude! was seeing it at the house of one of my friends when we were young. He was an amazing guy who would pretty much perfect anything he put his mind to.

 My Greendog YouTube Review Video

The first thing I really saw him perfect was Greendog, then later it was Ridge Racer and finally it was the electric guitar. He made the game look like a work of art. He hadn’t owned it long but he seemed to totally understand everything about how it worked and he made it look darn easy to play.


I didn’t actually own it till years and years later. I think I got a boxed copy complete for £5 from an indy game shop and in all honesty the second I saw the game it made me think of my friend. Simply put, for me that game will forever be linked to him because not only is it the first time I saw it being played, I have also never seen it being played so well anywhere else.

OK so lets start with the story. Well, the main character is called Greendog which you could probably guess from the game’s name, and he has an issue. This issue is the fact that he was surfing and then he wiped out finding himself on a beach with no surfboard in site and a strange necklace around his neck. He soon finds out that the necklace can not be removed when a ‘beach babe’ appears before his eyes and informs him that the necklace is cursed and that he will be stuck wearing it until he finds the lost parts of an ancient Aztec treasure. Without the treasure he will be stuck with the necklace unable to remove it, unable to surf and – worse than that – every single living thing in the world will attack him. OK, so in a world where so many games involve random creatures trying to kill you for no apparent reason its actually pretty interesting to have a reason given here for why your character is homicidally pursued by birds, crabs, starfish and all manner of other creatures.

OK so I want to start by talking about the game play. Greendog is a platform game. You go from left to right jumping, swinging and traversing the levels, you have a Frisbee that you can throw at enemies. The real issue with this though is not in what Greendog can do, it’s in the way Greendog controls which can best be described as sluggish. Your button presses never quiet seem to work quite how you want, or quite as fast as you want. At its worst this game can be extremely frustrating. The Greendog sprite feels like a pretty large one really and the hit detection box around him feels like it is even bigger. Add to this his bad slow-motion feeling jumps which often end in either you taking damage that you feel is unjust and can cause people to seethe with rage or even worse instant death on occasion. If you think Greendog is hard to control on land then just you wait until you get him to go underwater.

I do have to give the game some praise though for trying to break things up a bit. There are skating levels, in which Greendog either jumps on a red skateboard or puts on pink rollerblades. And then you have levels with Greendog’s pedal copter, which he uses to travel from one island to the next. In these pedal copter levels you bash the C button repeatedly to remain airborne while using the B button to use the copter’s spring-loaded boxing glove weapon to attack enemies. The game is playable and it is completable despite feeling tough, because eventually you seem to get on board with its janky controls and learn to work around them. If you just watch someone play it and don’t feel what it’s like then you’d be forgiven for thinking that its a great game as there was certainly a lot of effort put into it.

Yes, you could say that Greendog is yet another platformer on the Mega Drive – a console that certainly is not short of 2D platformers, but to its credit I think it does enough to have its own flavour and therefore stand out as its own thing. The game has its Caribbean sort of style you find yourself traversing through jungles, across beaches, exploring an aquarium, visiting a native village and other places. It’s nicely varied while also managing to keep everything connected to a central theme and I think it does this very well. Along the way you will collect items, these are usually foods such as French fries, burgers and doughnuts, but you also get power-ups which upgrade your Frisbee or give you more protection from damage.

Lastly I want to talk about Greendog’s music. In all honesty I think it is simply excellent. Much like the graphics it sticks to this Caribbean style but it also offers a wide variety of tunes. Most importantly I think what is on offer really fits the games general theme, it works well with the graphics and gives the whole package a certain degree of charm. It’s just a shame that these good things about the game are not really backed up by the gameplay.

OK so I tried this game at 50hz UK and 60Hz US and I have to say that the game is more fun at 60hz as moving that little bit faster helps the way the game feels, and the music also sounds a lot better. I did think it was a little bit easier when it was slower though I guess that’s just because it allows for you to be a bit slower in your reaction to enemies, etc.

It is kind of hard to rate this game, I mean on the one hand it is really broken in some departments, but then its full of character and it does make a big effort to break up the action. There is a lot about it I really like and also a lot I dislike. I feel that what it really deserves is a six out of 10. It’s slightly above average and there was certainly all of the stuff here that could have taken it up to classic status but there was also far to much dragging the game back down.

If you really want to play it then complete copies seem to be around the £15 mark, with loose carts being about half this much. While not exactly bad prices there are much better games you could spend your money on.

150 Megadrive/Genesis Games Reviewed 1: Mercs AKA Wolf of the Battlefield 2

 

The game I am going to be talking about for my very first Megadrive/Genesis game in this series is Mercs, or to give it its original name Senjō no Ōkami II which basically translates as Wolf of the Battlefield II. I played this game back when I was a kid and never for a second realised that it was a sequel, in fact at the time I also didn't realise that it had been an Arcade game developed and published by Capcom in 1990 before it was on the Megadrive/Genesis.In fact it had been one of the games on Capcom's Capcom Play System (CPS)arcade Hardware. 

For those interested in the inside of arcade machines the CPS was an interesting bit of kit. It was essentially a large arcade Jamma compatible board with the games then stored on removable ROM cartridges /boards. You could then if you were an arcade operator buy a new small rom cart with a different game on it and change this instead of having to buy a whole new large arcade board, its kind of a little bit like the NEO GEO MVS system SNK used, its most famous for being the hardware that ran the original street fighter 2, and I actually own a CPS board but I only have one rom board for it and that is PANG 3.(Capcom also went on to release an adapted console version of this board in Japan for home users, as well as two sequel boards for the arcades named the CPS2 and CPS3).

MERCS VIDEO REVIEW

This game first came into my life when I got a cheap Japanese copy of it from my local Indy Games store called Gamesworld. I used to buy a lot of import games from here because when they were new and not out over here they were quiet expensive but as soon as the game was out over here the Japanese versions would be dropped to around £5 and I could usually either buy this with my £5 a week pocket money or I could just not eat at school and save up my dinner money to buy games with something I frequently did, I kind of wish I still owned that Japanese copy but oh well at least I still have a copy of it. It was years and years later that I realised that it had been in the arcades and that it was in fact the sequel to the 1985 Commando a game which I actually had played in the Arcades as well as a port of it on my Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer. I am always moaning like heck that various games deserve more sequels and this one actually got one in 2008 called Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 which was a downloadable game for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. I didn't actually play this till I got the Capcom Digital Collection which was a compilation of digitally released capcom games which had appeared on the Xbox 360, I am not reviewing Commando 3 but I will say its a bit of a lesser sequel in my opinion but still not too bad.

So what we have here is the 2^nd part of a trilogy right? Well the answer to that would be Yes and No I guess. You see Mercs on the Megadrive wasn't actually made by Capcom at all, it was instead converted by Sega and they actually made quiet a few changes. Now most people would expect me to say that what happened was that Sega removed a whole bunch of stuff and made a weaker worse version that there console could more easily pull of right? Well there is a tiny bit of truth to this in that the arcade game was a one to three player third-person shooter game and well this game is a one player game. OK I know people are instantly going to think oh dear removing the multiplayer sucks, just look at how much it effected games like Final Fight on the SNES but really I think Sega did more than enough to cover this, sure a two player mode would have been nice but there is a lot to recommend about this game.

For a start there are two modes of play, one is called Arcade and the other is called Original. Arcade is basically a one player conversion of the actual arcade machine, it puts you in the shoes of one particular soldier, who can collect various different weapons throughout the different levels. Its good to see the arcade game on offer here even if it is restricted to one player mode, a lot of games would have given you this and then just shrugged off the fact that they'd cut out the multiplayer and gone, ''well it was the best we could do given the hardware''.

The way the arcade mode plays you basically take your guy and travel vertically up the screen shooting enemy soldiers, vehicles and turrets while trying to take as little damage as possible. At the end of each level there is a boss, for example at the end of the first level this is a fighter jet which shoots its machine guns down at the cliff you find yourself standing on while you try to dodge the bullets and take it out. The gameplay is deliciously old-Skool, its simple to pick up but with room to master, basically you move with the D-Pad and shoot with one button and then have a button which uses what is called the Mega-Crash, basically this is your screen clearing/heavy damage bomb button, which tends to be good either for when your surrounded and in danger or to deal heavy damage to bosses. The gameplay is really simple you basically shoot everything, you shoot enemies, you shoot item boxes to open them, and you shoot trees or gates or other things which hinder your progress, all while trying to get shot as infrequently as possible. During certain levels you will be able to get into certain vehicles these include tanks, boats and jeeps and as well as providing a little extra armour to you there also great fun and help to break things up a bit, if you enjoy arcade style games then your bound to get a fair bit of fun from this.

The Original mode, is sort of a rearanged mode with a few neat touches. Ok so first you start off with one soldier, you only have one life and your weapon starts of pretty darn pathetic. At first you feel seriously underpowerd to take on what the game will throw at you and this is much harder than the arcade mode. In fact at the end of the first level you basically have to defeat the arcade level one boss and take so little damage that you will have enough life to make your way into the second level. I would strongly recommend starting with the Arcade Mode and playing this as sort of game + kind of thing.

In this mode you wont find any extra lives but as you progress you will find fellow Soliders/Mercs. These Mercs will have different guns, basically they are the guns you can collect in the arcade mode but here each gun is tied to a different guy and once you have more than one you can tactically switch between them, thereby using the right guy for the right situation. As you gain more items the weapons you have will become a lot more powerful but you will need to decide which of your characters needs to pick up what is in front of you, be it food or power up icons. These extra guys essentially become your extra lives, but if you only concentrate on powering up one of them then when he dies well the others are basically screwed. You will collect medals on your journey and these become a form of currency you can use in shops in order to power your guys up. This added mode is a lot tougher to complete and I feel it adds a heck of a lot more to this title, in fact when I have gotten the arcade version of Mercs on various compilation collections I have often found myself feeling like id prefer to have the Megadrive Version which is something you seldom hear said about a conversion, its a shame that there has never been an enhanced version of Mercs for later systems offering all of the benefits of both the arcade (multiplayer) and Megadrive versions.

 For a pretty early Megadrive game this game has really good graphics, its the kind of thing that people would have wrongly called arcade perfect back in the day, they are in fact not identical to the arcades graphics but they are quiet frankly close enough for me to not care at all, everything looks correct and runs smoothly and when you throw in what I find to be a brilliant action packed soundtrack it all just fits and offers up what I would personally consider an amazing experience. I have actually found myself humming bits from this game long after I have finished playing it which for me is always a sign of a good video game soundtrack. As I try my Megadrive games on both a 50hz and 60hz console I want to briefly touch on that in my reviews, as far as Mercs goes it actually doesn't feel much different when played on either set up, although if you do play the game in a Japanese console you do get the alternative title and the story will be shown in Japanese.

OK so I suppose it is time to give Mercs a score out of 10, I happily give this game 9 out of 10. Its great fun and as well as brining the arcade game home it offers a mode with a little more challenge which helps it last longer as a home experience, I guess its just the lack of multiplayer which makes it loose out on the 10 out of 10 perfection score for me, but id still rather have this version than its arcade counterpart.

OK so if you want to buy this game how much is it likely to cost you? Well Pal carts seem to start around the £7 mark with boxed copies starting at roughly double that, both of which I think are good prices for this game. Obviously if you want to give it a bash I would advice you to look around and decide if you want a loose cart or a complete copy and then go for the best one you can find bearing condition and price in mind.

Retro Game purchases: March 2018

So its the third month of the year and once again as always I have been tracking how much I have been spending on retro games. The first month was an expensive one, with the second not being too bad. I didn't start out with any plan to spend more or less this month so I guess lets just see how it went.

My retro purchases started on March the 4th when I got Pop'n Twinbee for the SNES Pal cart only for £11 yesterday, really happy as it was one of the games I really wanted for my SNES review series.

The following day I grabbed Judge Dread for the SNES Pal cart only for £8 another one grabbed to review. if you have been following my review series you will see I have now reviewed 150 SNES games but this didnt stop me from grabbing a few more things for the system this month.

On the 8th of March I grabbed a complete copy of Vagrant story for £15, which I am pretty happy about as I love getting Squaresoft RPG's.

 

I also grabbed Star Ocean The Last Hope Limited collectors edition complete with everything for £1.50 so it was pretty much a Square RPG kind of day.

 

Then I got Little Nemo the Dream Master cart only for the NES  for £5 on the 12th. Pretty happy about this as its a Capcom developed platformer, not there best but still intresting.

On the 14th of March I got Solar Jetman, complete in box for £6, I was really happy with this as it was a crazy price for a boxed NES game especially seeing as it has not only its manual but a poster and the little registration card, its neat to see a game this old where everything is still there and nothing has been lost.

 

On the 14th I also grabbed Super Bowling Japanese complete for £10 I got this as it was part of my SNES review series and all I had was a cart but I saw this complete and just decided I wanted it. 

 

 

On the 18th of March I grabbed Grabbed Virtual Pool 64 for the N64 for £1.50 cart only. Then on the 22nd I Grabbed a bunch of stuff. I grabbed Virtual pool 64 and Top Gear Rally £2 for cart only copies of both... Yeah only just got Virtual pool a couple of days ago but it was a good price. On top of this I grabbed The adventures of Dr Frankenstein for SNES American cart only for £7, and I also got a small bundle of game gear carts for £7, I got sonic the hedgehog, super Monaco gp2, Joe Montana football, solitaire funpak, and the majors pro baseball.

On March the 24th for £10 I got some Japanese SNES games Super cup soccer (boxed complete) prime goal 3 cart only, All star dream slam (wrestling) cart only and super famista 3 (baseball) cart only.

Then on the 25th I went on a carboot and got Asterix & obelix cart only pal for the SNES for £10, NHL 2000 for the PlayStation complete for £1, NBA live 99 for the PlayStation complete for £1, and Premier manager for the megadrive complete for £2

This means that this month I spent £94 on retro games, its clearly not the most or least I have ever spent but I do think that things might start to slow down from here as I have completed my series of 150 SNES reviews. Sure I have moved on to 150 Megadrive Reviews but I already own enough carts to do this. I know that I certainly want to spend more time both playing and writing about games in the upcoming months than I do trying to buy them.

SNES Review 139: Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf

It is funny how you sometimes consider a game to be a SNES game or a Megadrive game or a playstation game not because it was exclusive to that machine but because thats just the machine you most associate with it. For me Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf was always a Megadrive game, I owned a SNES and an Amiga at the same time as I had my Megadrive but back in the day I never even realized you could get Desert Strike on anything other than the MegaDrive. Desert Stike came into my life because of one of my brothers, he brought it home one day and began playing it, at first I just watched him but eventually I started having a go at it myself. I have to admit that other than Thunderblade I hadn't actually played many games were you controlled a helicopter at least not any that automatically spring to mind so this made it stand out.  In fact helicopters were not something I had thought about much at all with my only real exposure to them being airwolf and Howling mad Murdoch flying one in the A team.

So Desert Strike is a military themed shoot 'em up released by Electronic Arts in 1992 originally for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis I think my brother must have gotten it pretty soon after its release because of my strong association between the game and this format. The truth of the matter though is that the game made it to all kinds of formats obviously the SNES as I am talking about it here, but it also made it to the , Amiga, MS-DOS, Mac OS, the Master System, the Lynx, the Game Gear, and the Game Boy.

The game is clearly inspired by the Gulf War and depicts a conflict between an insane Middle Eastern dictator, who despite having a made up name is obviously a stand in for Saddam Hussein and the United States. The game came out after the gulf War had ended but there is a certain degree to which this game kind of has an America F*** Yeah propaganda sort of feel to it and there actually was some small degree of controversy regarding the game's subject matter back in the day with some people criticizing it saying it was a little bit distasteful with its  release being so close to the end of the Gulf War. Looking at it now and thinking of the context of it all sort of makes me think of Team America but still even noting this as insensitive as it might seem of me I personally don't really care if the game is semi based on reality if its a fun game thats enough for me. As far as plot goes it doesn't extend much beyond where the good guys and we are going to stop a nut case dictator by destroying his weapons but really for this sort of game what more do you need?

OK so when your playing Desert Strike you control an AH-64 Apache helicopter and ''if there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that nothing is more powerful than an Apache helicopter. An Apache helicopter has machine guns AND missiles. It is an unbelievably impressive complement of weaponry, an absolute death machine.'' to paraphrase Patrick Stewart. Well you use this absolute death machine to go on missions which involve all manner of objectives such as destroying enemy weapons and installations, rescuing hostages and capture enemy personnel. While doing this you need to be mindful of your ammunition it is possible to run out of both shells for your cannons and rockets but you can find more and pick them up. When I described this as a shoot em up it might have brought all kinds of ideas to the brain of someone who has not played it, usually shoot em ups are fast and your either going up the screen or left to right but Desert Strike is not like this at all. There is less emphasis on quick moving and more on strategy. The action takes place on open, multi-directional scrolling levels viewed from an isometric perspective, your not forced to keep moving you can go towards enemies at your own pace and you can back up, strafe and even retreat, this makes it have more of a thinking edge to it. Do you fly in all weapons blazing or slowly strafe towards a target or even decide your not ready and go seeking extra missiles and ammo?

As previously mentioned the levels in the game consist of several missions, which are based around the destruction of enemy weapons and/or enemy installations, rescuing POWs, or capturing enemies. How you do this though is where your grey matter comes into the equation, you need to look at the map work out the direction you need to go in and then meet whatever enemies you find with the appropriate response, obviously you could fire a hydra missile at a stick man holding a pistol but then what are you going to do when you have used all of your missiles and your stuck trying to knock out an anti air missile defense with a low powered machine gun most likely your going to die. So given this some of the strategy comes in knowing which weapon to use when, which target to eliminate first, when to fight and when to run. Your Apache has a very limited amount of armor, which is depleted as the helicopter is hit by enemy fire, when the armor is gone well then its bang bye bye helicopter time. If this happens three times then its game over.You also have a finite amount of fuel which is steadily depleted over time. Should the fuel run out the Apache will crash, again bye bye helicopter. You can however refuel by collecting fuel barrels. This means that really you need to plan mission routes carefully in order to maximize fuel efficiency.so there is a lot of balancing you need to do making this more thought based than a lot of shooting games.

The game controls well if there is anything I would add it would be cross-hairs to show where your missiles and guns are pointing and likely to hit but I suppose this would lower the challenge really. The game is fairly short but is pretty high on challenge its not one for those who are easily frustrated due to the fact if you just go in guns blazing your armor is pretty shoddy and you'll soon find yourself facing a game over screen, slow and steady wins the race here. Its also not the best game for re-playability as once you have it done and dusted your probably not going to pick it up again for quiet a long time as outside of the main game theres nothing to help prolong your time with it (no multiplayer or score attack or anything). The graphics are simple but functional, everything looks as it should even if its not overly flashy. It all sort of looks like highly accurate military toys which is kind of cool. The same can be said for the sound its all very functional, you have your helicopter noise your missile and machine gun noises your crashing noise but if you want music then your sadly out of look as the game simply doesn't have any. I know music would potentially hurt the realism but I would have personally liked the option.


So what do I think of Desert Strike overall? I think its a pretty darn good game really, I wouldn't call it perfect and I do have some issues with it but for me I would call it a 7 out of 10. I did grab my megadrive version and have a quick go on it and maybe its just me but it actually seemed a little bit better on there, having checked though apparently the main developer much prefers the megadrive version so if you have both machines id look to the megadrive in this case. I spent £5 on an American SNES cart of this game and having a look the going rate seems to be around £10 for either a Pal or NTSC cart with boxed copies being more between the £25 to £35 price range, obviously these prices vary but this gives you a rough idea of what to expect.

Tanglewood an upcoming new Sega Megadrive/Genesis game

Ok so early last month I talked about. Paprium the hopefully upcoming new Megadrive/Genesis walk along beat em up. This is not the only new Megadrive game thats headed our way in fact there is a new platformer coming called TangleWood.

Matt Phillips the creator of  Tanglewood, has been working on this new Sega Mega Drive, for a few years now. It was a kickstarter and it has like a lot of kickstarters missed its initial target date but unlike in other cases plenty of information has kept coming forward and it looks like it should be out sometime this year. Here is a link to its Kickstarter page so anyone interested can have a look Tanglewood Kickstarter: 

Having a look through all the various Kickstarter options £20 will get you a downloadable rom of the game that you can play on your Megadrive via an everdrive or through an emulator ecetera. Then you can get a real cart for £50 or a boxed copy for £60 (there were cheaper early bird deals but they are no longer available). There are also more expensive options for limited carts and such.

Matt Philips claims to have taken inspiration from the art and movement of games like Another World and The Lion King, with his aim being to create something like them from the ground up. Having looked at concept art, screenshots, videos, and having even played the prototype rom I can say that from what I have seen it looks like this will be a pretty good game. Its also interesting to note that this game has been made with proper megadrive development hardware, he has been using an original Mega CD development kit alongside a computer running Windows 95 to program the game.

Its also nice to see that he has thought everything through and has answers for how things are going to be made, apparently he has an agreement with a factory in China who will produce plastic Sega style cartridges for him, he also has a contact in Canada who is the engineer and proprietor of a company called DB Electronics making the PCB game circuit boards to go inside the plastic. Apparently this guy is an expert and will be making sure this PCB works just like a real MegaDrive game from back in the day. He also tried to approach Sega to get the game officially licensed which would have been really cool. Unfortunately, Sega apparently no longer has the resources in place to test and do quality assurance on a project of this nature, apparently though they were supportive and friendly. Matt Philips also has some time working for well known studios on games which have been released under his belt as do all of the other people he has gotten involved in the project so its not like one of those projects where someone says they are going to do something they have no hope of doing, theyve all basically done this before just on different formats with different funding methods (basically paid by a studio to do it on there behalf).

I do like to see projects like this especially when they seem to be so well thought out. I never do tend to support Kickstarters though as well I guess I am just cynical after having seen so many fail or not measure up in one way or another. I don't like to pay for things I will get in the future, heck I don't even preorder games even if there like triple AAA titles from studios that have no chance of bankruptcy etc, I tend to like to hand real cash over and get a product straight away or at worst pay on card and it be shipped out the following day. There is also the issue that I personally wouldnt know what to go for, I own a Everdrive so could just get the rom but then part of me says well you have over 200 megadrive carts so your not usually a just a rom guy but then there different because there old classics and this is a new thing. This aside though I really do hope that the project is a roaring success as the maker seems to have seen this as a sort of childhood dream and seems to have really poured his heart and soul into it. As a kid I always wanted to write a novel and I know how much it meant to me to finally have done that, so I guess this is his novel and I wish him the utmost success with it.

Yet more Megadrive/Genesis Box art comparisons and discusions. CyberBall and Dynamite Duke

OK so there are a lot of common themes I return to on this blog one of them being Japanese Video game box art usually for the sega Megadrive/Genesis. Well its a new year so to put it simply here is a new one of those posts. First things first though I am aware that I have new readers who might not have seen a lot of this so I will drop a few links here to my earlier pieces on this matter so that if you wish you can look at them and well catch up on this subject.

DJ BOY Box art comparison
LION KING Box art comparison
SUPER VOLLEY BALL Box art comparison
QUACK SHOT & CASTLE OF ILLUSION Box art comparison
WORLD OF ILLUSION Box art comparison
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES TF Box art comparison
ART OF FIGHTING Box art comparison
JEWEL MASTER Box art comparison
ESWAT Box art comparison

It is here I also want to show a collection of posts from a friend of mine who has a blog (Although unfortunately it is not very regularly updated anymore). I wanted to show this as well its pretty much his posts that got me into this. If your reading this DS90 come on chap give us some more gold to read.

DS90 GAMER'S Box art series


OK so I am going to look at two games today and they are Cyberball and Dynamite Duke

So this is the European box art for Cyberball a game which is pretty much John Madden robot edition if you need a simple explanation. Now its not a bad bit of box art you can tell its robots playing American football and the characters on show look a bit like Transformers crossed with NFL players. I dont like the way that the title is written in half solid lettering and half outline its just a bit weird in my opinion.

The American version is pretty much the same art used in more or less the same way, there is very little between them so really there is no point trying to put them against each other and decide which is the better one so instead lets move onto Japan and there version.

I have to say though that personally for me this Japanese art really knocks the above art right out of play.  Maybe part of it is the fact that the robot is looking right out of the cover at you as if he is about to throw the ball towards you, this just draws me straight in, maybe its also the fact that the robot has a sleeker more dangerous look as apposed to the one above being more purly functional. This is what is exciting futursitic looking robots coverd in spikes smashing the heck out of each other, not rolling functional toasters. I also find the title much more appealing not only because of it being in gold which stands out so well but also because of it not having half of the title as only an outline. If I would complain about anything on this cover it might be the size and placement of the words ''Football in the 21st Century'' its just covering the art a bit too much for my liking.

Ok so Dynamite Duke and its European box art. Its not too bad, I have to admit I am really not a fan of getting real people to dress up in prop clothes and photographing them in order to make a Video game cover I think its just kind of lazy. Also strangly this guy is making me think of Jessie the Body Ventura but maybe thats because I have been watching too much old school wrestling lately. I would call this functional but flat.

OK so the American version is basically just the same art with there usual logos and set up applied, this means that my thoughts on it are pretty much the same. I would quickly say that I think its slightly worse as there is more border space and less image but theres certainly not a lot to say here.

OK so for me this Japanese case art is a one million time improvement on the above. I like the way that instead of a sort of flat font the title Dynamite Duke has been turned into a sort of logo complete with fist and concrete letters this is instantly more exciting. Then we get to Duke himself, no longer is he a plain army guy who looks nothing like the in game character, he is now shown as a cool Saturday morning cartoon sort of action hero who actually looks like the games sprite. He has a kick ass terminator style arm which looks like its about to punch its way right out of the cover complete with awesome shoulder pad and on show robotic levers and gears. This is how you get someone pumped up to play a game like this. Why couldn't we have had something like this?

Now here is my custom idea for a Dynamite Duke cover for Europe using the Japanese art. I don't always do this but I thought in this case it would be kind of fun Its probably instantly apparent that I have darkened things and added some of the typical logos and such that we would see on games over here. I could have kept the original art as it was but I guess I like the idea of adding more black so that the dark 16-bit cartridge bar on the bottom doesn't look quiet as harsh in contrast to the image. I also feels that this kind of gives the impression like Duke is stepping out of the shadows into the enemy fire and the flames showing himself as the hero we need.