The world's premier resource for SEGA's arcade and console hardware legacy!
Americans might not be as familiar with Asterix and his comic exploits, as the series mostly stayed in Europe. Two platformers were actually released for the Genesis, though only one came out in America. The first game, Asterix and the Great Rescue made the trip overseas, but was it worth it?
Data East may no longer be around as an actual company (though you can still play some of their arcade classics on the Wii via the Data East Arcade Collection on the Wii this month), the games will live forever, especially its competent arcade ports on the Genesis. Atomic Runner was one coin-op favorite to make the jump, and it’s a fun little run-‘n-gun with some lush visuals and large bosses.
They’re creepy and kooky, but their game is simply mediocre. The Addams Family on the Genesis is a by-the-numbers platformer that does nothing new and doesn’t do the old stuff as good as a hundred other platformers of the era. It’s a shame that Flying Edge simply went with Ocean’s version instead of trying something new. Heck, an upgrade of Fester’s Quest would have been better.
Genesis fans are well acquanted with Electronic Arts’ James Pond series. The Amiga-friendly fish had a total of four outings on Sega’s über console, the last of which was simply massive. Featuring over a hundred levles and a Super Mario World-like world map, it took Agent Pond on a mission to stop Dr. Maybe from crippling the world’s dairy industry by mining the Moon for cheese. Seriously. We have a full review of it for you, so please chedder out. Sorry, I had to try and slip at least one cheesy joke in. Ha! See what I did there?
At one time it seemed like the only way to find a decent game with the Acclaim logo was to look for one that belonged to another company, and even then it was hit or miss. Under the Flying Edge banner, the company did manage to produce some decent software, and along with successful arcade ports like NBA Jam, Acclaim made some strides towards decency. Another port it tossed our way was that of Williams incredibly popular Smash T.V. Adding a “super” to the name, it wasn’t as pretty or customizable as its SNES sibling, but there was still much fun to be had.