"[The Summer CES] was a significant improvement over the Winter CES for Sega overall. The games were showing quite a bit more potential and the clincher was the appearance of the Sega CD."
- 1993 Video Game Preview Guide, EGM July 1992
Arena 8 megabits The Genesis version of Alien 3 has been criticised by some for having repetitive gameplay, with every level requiring you to rescue a set number of prisoners and then escape. While there is indeed some truth to that statement, I'm not sure that Alien 3 is really any more repetitive than most other games in its genre, and its fantastic presentation more than makes up for its supposed shortcomings. The graphics in Alien 3 are certainly impressive, with several layers of smooth parallax scrolling evident in each level, and cool digitised photographs of drooling aliens and such between rounds. The locales that the player guides Ripley though are also quite varied, ranging from massive industrial settings to an eerie alien hive. What really makes this game for me, though, is the incredible quality of its audio. At a time when the Genesis system was first starting to be criticised for its supposed lacklustre aural capabilities relative to the SNES, Alien 3's sound and music were like a breath of fresh air. The music is crystal clear and perfectly suited to each stage, starting with thumping electronic scores early on and evolving into unsettling atmospheric numbers for the later stages. The sound effects also deserve special mention, as Ripley's arsenal of machine guns and grenades sound just like you'd expect them to, while the deep and thunderous death of each alien she dispatches proves very satisfying to the player indeed. In short, Alien 3 was just what the Genesis library needed at just the right time. Fresh from their success with Alien 3, the game's developers (Probe) went on to code the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat, which is another story for another time... |
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Data East 8 megabits This arcade translation received a lukewarm critical reception upon its release. Still, Data East is the company which brought Burger Time into the gaming world, so we can't hate them too much :) "Captain America and the Avengers is an amazingly clutzy translation of the arcade coin-op, which was pretty amazingly clutzy, too, when you think about it." |
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Flying Edge 4 megabits Roger Clemens jumped on the celebrity endorsement bandwagon with Roger Clemens MVP Baseball, a decision he probably now regrets... "MVP Baseball gets points for its unique graphic presentation, but not for much else. Tengen's RBI Baseball 4 and Sega's SportsTalk Baseball both have real major league rosters ands superior game play." |
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Tengen 8 megabits Steel Talons for the Genesis system was based on the Atari arcade game of the same name. I've never tried it, but the game should be considered at least somewhat noteworthy for its use of polygonal graphics on a 16-bit system. |
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Kaneko 4 megabits I have no idea if Chester Cheetah is still the mascot for Cheetos, but I guess he was enough of a draw in the early nineties to warrant this surprisingly colourful Genesis title... |
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Tengen 4 megabits Translations of Atari's Rampart coin-op made it to just about every system around at the time. It appears the Genesis system was no exception... "The control is nice and the sounds are grand. It is a good conversion all in all." |
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Tengen 4 megabits Why anyone would want to play a paperboy simulation is beyond me, but Atari's coin-op seems to have done well enough to warrant this Genesis conversion. "Genesis plays an okay version of Paperboy. That really isn't saying much, since the game is not that intense at the outset." |
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Arena 4 megabits Terminator 2: The Arcade Game is one of very few titles to support Sega's Menacer light-gun peripheral. This game should not be confused with Terminator 2: Judgement Day, which was a side-scrolling action game released the following year. |
