"Sega doesn't have the same kind of marketing strength as Nintendo. We never felt that we needed a license (with Sega). We're still in negotiation with Sega, but we didn't feel that we needed their trademark on our products."
- Trip Hawkins (CEO of Electronic Arts), VG&CE August 1990
Sage's Creation 4 megabits I know very little about this game, but it was supposed to be like Mystic Defender, so it can't be all bad, can it? "There's a little bit of everything in this game, including a lot of atmosphere, some awesome graphics and a few real surprises of the "just when you thought it was over"... variety." "This action game is an insult to my intelligence. Don't waste your time or money. There are better games to spend it on. Graphics and game play, YUK. I give it a 3 for the music also." |
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Sage's Creation 4 megabits By this point, the whole "side-scrolling-shooter" thing was getting a bit old on the Genesis system. I've never played this one, and I've only heard bad things about it, but VG&CE seemed to like it... "Insector X does for side-view shoot-'em-ups what Altered Beast did for side-view beat-'em-ups." |
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Renovation 4 megabits Another side-view shoot-'em-up. They seemed to be churning out dozens of these per month back then... "The graphics are outstanding. While one or two Genesis arcade games suffer a bit from overkill, when the eye gets dazzled and confused just by the wealth of on-screen happenings, the designers of Whip Rush have made even the most active, colorful screens detailed and complex, but not overly confusing." |
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Renovation 4 megabits A weird-looking overhead perspective action game of some sort, Final Zone sported a graphical style similar to Renovation's side-scrolling shooters. |
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Tengen 4 megabits Another entry into the prolific "puzzle" genre of the early 90s, Klax took coloured-tile-matching into the third dimension. There were versions of this game for several systems, with the Atari Lynx version (surprisingly) often regarded as the best of the bunch. "True to the basic premise of the genre, Klax is a game that's very simple to pick up, but with subtleties of strategy that will keep you, and the whole family, coming back again and again." |
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Electronic Arts 4 megabits Part of EA's first wave of Genesis titles, this game seems to have faded from most people's memory because of the tremendous success of John Madden Football. "Although not complex enough to rate as an actual simulation, Lakers vs. Celtics plays a pretty hot game of basketball." |
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Sega 1 megabit Tetris was a huge hit for Nintendo in the early 1990s (and a big disaster for Tengen, but that's another story...), so Sega no doubt felt they needed a popular puzzle game of their own. The fruit of their labours was Columns, a surprisingly addictive colour-matching puzzle game with an appealing classical look and musical score. I actually prefer this game to Tetris, but then I also liked Mystic Defender... "Two of the most popular puzzle games these days are Tetris and Klax. Wanting a similar contest for the Genesis, Sega has taken the themes from both of these successful titles, combined them and come up with Columns, a colorful and intriguing game of strategy - and, of course, a guaranteed hit." "I guess it's not so bad." |
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RazorSoft 4 megabits In the early days of the Genesis system, some people thought that Sega would allow a much greater variety of game styles and genres to be developed than was possible on the NES. Nintendo was very restrictive at the time in terms of what kind of content was "acceptable" for a game released on their console. TechnoCop's level of graphic violence got it a lot of attention, perhaps more than RazorSoft would have liked. Ironically, their next Genesis game, Stormlord, wound up being censored by Sega because it contained "nude" female statues in some scenes. Apparently someone at Sega forgot to play Mystic Defender! "The criminals literally explode, leaving only a quivering pile of blood and guts. The visual effect can be unsettling, even shocking. For this reason, the game's manufacturer places a Parental Advisory notice on the box, warning that some might be offended by TechnoCop's depiction of violence carried to its grim conclusion." |
