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No game console since the early ’90s has lacked the Madden series and dominated the industry. The series first stepped into the console arena on the Genesis, and it quickly grew into a sports juggernaut. Many people see the 1994 edition as the point where the franchise really began to come into its own, and it’s a football title that still plays as well today as it did over a decade and a half ago.
It seems that no one liked Last Action Hero. The Governator was beginning his slow downward spiral into movie retirement, and his first movie after the incredible T2: Judgment Day got trounced at the box office by Sleepless in Seattle. So poorly did the movie do, that Shwarzenegger’s own salary was virtually equal to its opening weekend gross. Of course, Sony tried to capitalized on the movie with a video game tie-in, and to say that the game mimics the film isn’t entirely accurate. Let’s just say that as bad as the movie may be, the game is infinitely worse. Horrible gameplay, repetitive enemies, brutal difficulty, and levels that go on way too long are only some of the problems that plague this doorstop.
The story of Tetris is long and convoluted enough to fill an entire book, and those wanting to know the full story about the tangled legal mess that the game’s home rights turned into are encouraged to check out David Sheff’s Game Over: Press Start to Continue. It has all the details about the litigation and underhanded plays that occurred as multiple entities and people tried to cash in on the Russian phenomenon. One company that was caught in the crossfire was Sega, which tried to release a version of Tetris for the Mega Drive, only to find itself slapped down by the legal issue. Few copies were actually released, and a slew of pirate versions have since cropped up, fetching ridiculous prices on eBay.
The range of computer ports Electronic Arts brought to the Genesis was quite broad, and everything from RPGs to platformers and action games made the jump. Even racing titles found their way onto Sega’s wonder console, and among the franchises that saw success there was the Lotus series of games. Featuring real cars and a ton of courses, the Genesis port of Lotus III was redubbed as RECS when it was ported. How did it fair against Sega’s own OutRun and others?
No one today doubts the massive popularity of EA’s Tiger Woods series. It’s been a juggernaut for more than a decade, going back to its console roots on the Genesis as PGA Tour Golf, and even farther back than that on computers. The first title was a massive hit, and the sequel offered more of everything without really fiddling with the formula. Was it a recipe for success or did it hit the rough?