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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.
Before a certain hedgehog took the world by storm, Sega was still relying on its arcade ports. Gamers weren’t taken by the advertising as well as the company would have liked, but the quality of the games was there. Like e Golden Axe, Sega produced a home version of Super Monaco GP that improved on the original with added modes and features. The World Championship mode is enough to keep players occupied for weeks, and there’s some solid arcade racing in there to boot!
Nowadays, we’re used to massive game compilations that feature tons of games and extras. It wasn’t always so, however, and some early collections were barely collections at all. Take Arcade Classics, for example. Three games – one of which is Pong – doesn’t exactly offer much bang for your buck. This is as bare bones as it gets folks, and yet we’ve taken the time to review it for you. Go play the real versions of Centipede and Missile Command on MAME or in a real cabinet so we’ll feel better about ourselves, will ya?
Sonic is making waves again, and 2008 might just be the year when Sega finally gets the old formula right. It’s been almost ten years since the famous hedgehog made the jump to the third dimension permanently, and it’s been a shaky road to this day. It wasn’t his first foray into 3D though, as two years before Sonic Adventure was released gamers were treated to a taste of what was to come with the Sonic World mode of Sonic Jam for the Sega Saturn. A compilation of all his 16-bit outings (sans Sonic 3D Blast), the game also boasted a fully 3D world that could be explored. It was mostly just a cool way to travel between different game options, but it set the precedent for Sonic’s evolution.
A sure sign of a console’s success is when some of its best-selling software is repackaged as a sort of “greatest hits” collection. All major publishers have done this (though Namco seems to have jumped the shark), and Sega is no different. Late in the life span of the Genesis, it released 6-Pak. No, that wasn’t a member of Degeneration X; it was a compilation cartridge that held six titles, some more classic than others.