The Genesis is a choice console for shooters, and few companies produced the library that Renovation did. In addition to Gaiares, Arrow Flash, and Granada, it also gave us Whip Rush. Quite the fun little shooter it is, too!
Reviews
Thunder Fox
Taito had a a string of releases for the Genesis, and it often seemed like every arcade game the company put out eventually found its way onto Sega’s console. Unfortunately, some ports were better than others, and a few, like Thunder Fox, took a major hit during the transition. Truth be told, there’s actually very little thunder in this version. In fact, compared to the coin-op original, the Genesis port sounds more like a rumbly tummy than anything else. Sigh… such were the things gamers had to live with at the time.
Stellar Fire
Remember Battlezone? The first-person experience of driving a tank through a battlefied was revolutionary for its time, and the formula has cropped up now and then since the ’80s. Dynamix used it for its Sega CD space fighter Stellar Fire, though it seems the company forgot to include the most important part of the experience: the fun. Stellar Fire offers a different type of gameplay, compared to other shooters on the Sega CD, but just how much it has to give we’ll leave to you to determine.
Pirates of Dark Water
Like pirate? Who doesn’t? Back before Orlando Bloom an Johnny Depp made them super popular again, there was a moderately popular cartoon show based on a trio of pirates who had adventures in another land (planet?). From 1991 to 1993, The Pirates of Darkwater sought to reboot the genre, and while it wasn’t entirely successful, it did spawn a pretty decent action game with RPG elements.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
taken great pains to ensure that there’s a game in the series for every console out there, and the Genesis, being dominant during its heyday, got just about every 2D version released. The last one to come to Sega’s wonder box was Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, which included everything but the kitchen sink (though I think there was a coupon in the manual to send away for one), and the debate still rages today as to how it holds up versus the SNES version.