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Basketball was a big part of the Genesis’ success, and Electronic Arts lead the charge with its superb NBA Live series. So powerful was the impact felt by the franchise’s thunderous 1994 debut that the brand name became an EA staple and continues to sell well today. We have a full review of the first game, NBA Live ’95, one of the premier games in the genre on the console, so read up and get ready to get your B-ball on!
The early days of the Genesis were marked by big name licenses attached to… not so big games. Buster Douglas Knockout Boxing, Tommy Lasorda Baseball, and Pat Riley Basketball were just a few of the titles that were pushed based on their endorsements, rather than their features and gameplay. Pat Riley was particularly offensive in this regard, sporting – no pun intended – dull gameplay and some wacky physics.
Electronic Arts’ NHL series is highly revered by gamers, and given the longevity it has seen (rivaled only by that of EA’s other juggernaut, the Madden games), something is obviously right with the series. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the 1994 edition of the franchise, which turned out to be the only game in the series to receive a Sega CD version. In 1994, Sports fans needed no other reason to reconsider a purchase of the add-on once this baby was released.
It’s college bowl season, and Sega-16 is right in the action with coverage. We’ve run simulations of each game on Genesis hardware, and we’ll be comparing our results to the actual games! What? You want in on it too? Well all right then! Check out the Fiesta Bowl article and see how it holds up to the game itself.
The thing I remember most about Mario Lemieux Hockey is that it came with a real hockey puck. The oversized box protruding from the store shelf is an image that I’ll never forget. Unfortunately, that might be about the only thing this game has that makes it stand out, and Sega more or less only succeeded in simply filling a hole in the Genesis library by releasing it. Like many of the early sports titles on the console, it wasn’t anything to write home about – except for that cool hockey puck.