Well look at that! This month’s Reader Roundtable marks the feature’s third anniversary. Thirty-six consecutive months of our staff, readers, and forum members sounding off about what they play each month. I especially enjoy reading these, and it’s always interesting to see what everyone’s been up to. Twenty years of gaming goodness, and there’s no slowing down for the Genesis!
Mega Man: The Wily Wars By Ken Horowitz
Recently, I purchased a copy of this game from forum member Bratwurst, who gave it an American box and book. The result was incredibly professional looking, and the new box art looks really sweet. This gives me a great way to play this Europe and Japan-only gem on my Genesis until I can snag a PAL copy on eBay. They get expensive pretty quick, but this should tide me over until I find one in a decent price range.
I agree with many that the jumping dynamic is a bit off in this compilation, but hey – it’s Mega Man on my Genesis! The visual upgrades and save file balance things out, and having the first three games in a single cart is really cool. With Mega Man 9 out now, this rounds out a truly Mega month!
Dynamite Headdy By Vince Thornburg
There’s this giant red robot in the beginning of Dynamite Headdy that starts chasing after you and your nameless friends seconds into starting the game. For years I watched as this happened, knowing that the robot would take my friends. Then I would be bombed by a lone fighter plane, which would be followed by a giant cat who would attempt to take me down. A week ago, I sat for another session of DH. As I sat and watched, my dog walked in the room and bumped the controller.
The robot blinked! The hell? I grab the controller and continue hitting the robot, but it had already captured three out of the four of my friends and escaped. I reset the game and started over. I attacked the robot feverishly until it exploded and my friends were saved! “You got a secret bonus point!” the game cried. I paused and wondered just how long I’ve been playing this game. thirteen years! Thirteen! I’m still a rookie.
For the years I’ve been here, and for the many years I’ve played and collected Genesis games, I still know almost nothing. I’ve got a lot to learn. And it took just fifteen seconds in a game with the ugliest European box art.
Tecmo Super Bowl By Alex Burr
Well, it’s Thanksgiving season, and that means only one thing for us Lions fans and for you loyal readers. That means that its time to pull out good old Tecmo Super Bowl because the Lions are out of contention. Now normally, I play the three season mode. I love this game simply because its exactly like table football. I mean, what other game can you rush for over four hundred yards repeatedly? Well, I’m about three weeks in and i am in the middle of my second season. I am 23-0 and have won every game in the playoffs (obviously).
I love the strategy in Tecmo Super Bowl, and believe it or not its more than just guessing the right play if you are fast enough. This game is such a classic and this writer believes he is nearly unstoppable. Barry Sanders is nearly Bo Jackson-on-the-NES material for me. I mean, I am a Lions fan, so I do have to do something to make myself feel better, right? Just go ahead and try to stop me… or make me play some vertical shooter. I guess that a vertical shooter would be almost like Alex Burr kryptonite.
Snatcher By Tom Briggs
For me, Snatcher has always been the unobtainable. Somewhat like Panzer Dragoon Saga or Radiant Silvergun, Snatcher was meant to be admired and coveted from afar. I certainly had no business owning a copy of the game! The game had always been out of my price range, and I had long ago given up hope of ever owning it. That was, of course, until my birthday last May.
The irony of it all was that after finally obtaining the game, I couldn’t bring myself to play it! What if I didn’t like it? What if it didn’t live up to its impossible expectations? Would my faith in mankind be ruined forever? So my complete copy of Snatcher sat on my shelf, waiting patiently for someone to play it. And this month, I finally took the plunge.
To put it bluntly, Snatcher is ridiculously good. When I started the game up, I was met with some sub-par voice acting, which set expectations low. A few minutes later, those expectations were completely blown away. Almost the entire cast is well acted, and there’s a TON of spoken dialogue. Gillian Seed and Metal Gear are my particular favorites, which is a good thing seeing as they account for 90% of the voice work. Add to this a story that is so well told that it becomes obvious how ahead of its time Snatcher truly was. I was surprised at how easily the game kept my interest (as big of a compliment as I can give), and the short shooting sequences peppered throughout kept the gameplay fresh.
Hideo Kojima’s masterpiece deserves an equally amazing follow up. Whether that be a localized Policenauts (somebody please put the Wii’s Virtual Console to good use!) or a true sequel remains to be seen. As of right now, only proud owners of the Sega CD can truly know how good a digital comic can be.
Crusader of Centy By Joe Redifer
This month I done did play me some Crusader of Centy by world renowned publisher Atlus. That’s right, the same people responsible for that stupid-hard surgery game as well as some other games bring you Crusader of Centy for your Sega Genesis. I have heard rumors that this game is stupid-hard just like the surgery game, but I beat it without too much effort. I can’t even beat the third boss on their idiotic surgery game. I can walk diagonally in this game. I can’t walk at all in the surgery game. That just goes to show how diverse a company like Atlus is. I can even jump in this game and throw a friggin’ armadillo around with wild abandon! What other game lets you abuse animals in such a way as well as force them to work for you in return? Sure, a few other games let you kill animals and mutant forms of them, but abusing animals and letting them live to be abused again is really more fun than immediately putting them out of their misery, and Atlus made sure that animal abusers worldwide were covered with this game. I have heard that Atlus employees are not allowed to eat free range chicken or turkeys. Way to go, Atlus! I am glad they took time away from their surgery-game roots and that stupid Persona series to bring us Crusader of Centy.
VectorMan By Trey Mannan
This fall Playing Genesis/Mega Drive was a bit different. While the month of November has had some great games come out for new systems, I decided to take a look back at a game that innovated the aged Genesis/Mega Drive. VectorMan a game that showed up on the scene in 1995 a time where peoples perception of games was that the older systems of the 80’s and early ’90s were a thing of the past. People in general where looking ahead to systems like Playstation and Nintendo 64. VectorMan showed gamers that the Genesis had innovation left in it with clean crisp environments and exciting gameplay that kept you coming back even after you beat it because people enjoyed the game so much I personally liked the game music part of it everything with it flowed very well for gamers today that don’t have the time to sit down and play this amazing classic pick up a copy of the Sega Genesis collection for PSP and enjoy it on the go.
Speedball 2 By Sebastian Sponsel
Do you have a game that you’ve played dozens of times? Where you know every move, every trick? Where over the years you’ve reached a certain point of perfection where nothing and nobody seems to put up a challenge anymore?
For me, that game was Speedball 2. It’s one of my all-time-favorites, even though I can’t quite say why. It’s fast, it’s relatively easy to pick up and nevertheless complex at the same time. For more than ten years I had gone and bested any opponent.
But this weekend, things changed. Visiting a friend, I met his new roommate. And out of the blue, he challenged me to a match! What followed was the most intense game of Speedball I had for years! We gave everything we got! In a game where the score can reach the hundreds, we were hardly more than 2 points apart most of the times!
1st leg. I manage to knock out his goalie and score a goal! 42 – 34, with ten seconds to go! I go into defense, try to preserve the score, run with the ball. But there – the same second the horn signals the end of the game, my left mid-fieldman goes down! Ten points to my opponent! I lost 42 – 44!
With a mix of emotions, between disbelief and ambition, I enter the second leg with reinforced vigor. Still, he keeps his narrow lead. I change my tactics, he adapts his strategy. Finally, I break through at the sidelines, but instead for reaching for the goal, I head for the bumpers instead. Three hits in a row – and – FANFARE! Result of the 2nd leg: 56 – 52! Final score: 98 – 96! I won by the narrowest of margins! I lean back with a strange feeling of serenity.
Finally… a worthy opponent…
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