Gaming off the Beaten Path

  As much as I like sports games, I'm really not a fan of most of them before the 5th generation. However, I do have my share of exceptions. Of course, Tecmo Super Bowl is awesome. I don't really consider them true sports games, but I guess Punchout and Super Punchout are boxing titles. Exceptions like that are why I don't really like to make generalizations. But then again, those generalizations have to come from somewhere. It's a weird dichotomy. And fortunately, we don't have to explore it any further, because this week I want to talk about another, almost universal exception to this generalization, arcade style sports games. Maybe it's because they make absolutely no attempt to mimic actual sports at all, but I've always loved old school arcade sports games. NBA Jam is the first one that jumps to mind for a lot of people. I'm not a huge basketball fan...but I absolutely love NBA Jam. What other game allows you to have Hillary Clinton do a 360 flip du

  The end of a console's life cycle was always a weird and interesting time. People talk all the time about how much innovation there is at the start of a new generation, but they rarely talk about how much innovation occurs at the end of one. Sometimes you are better off sticking with the best of what old technology can provide rather than the worst of what new technology offers. I think that's something that goes beyond just gaming and extends to most different kinds of media, or even hardware, but that's a different discussion for a different day. A lot of underrated, forgotten (and expensive) games come late in life cycles, most gamers just move on to the next generation without a second thought. By the end of 1995, everyone wanted to play with the shiny new toys, the PlayStation and the Saturn. Those games had some interesting and outstanding early titles, but the 4th generation consoles weren't ready to go quietly. There were a lot of notable titles that came out

  Contrary to popular belief, Sonic the Hedgehog hasn't always been Sega's mascot. I always forget how much earlier than the SNES that the Genesis was released, or how long it competed directly with the NES. I am a little young to remember the true early days of the "Genesis does what Ninten-don't" campaign, though it was still around in some form when I was growing up. To people my age, Sonic the Hedgehog is Sega's mascot and always has been. However, that wasn't actually the case. Because before there was everyone's favorite super fast, super blue hedgehog with attitude, there was a derpy little boy name Alex Kidd. Released in 1989, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle is actually the only one of the series' five games to come out on the Genesis. Developed and published by Sega, it was the fourth game in a franchise that dated back to the early days of the Master System, Sega's 3rd generation console. I'm not going to lie, I don't think

  When you are discussing bad games, you have to understand that there are tiers just like there are with good ones. Just like there's a big difference between an all-time classic like Super Mario World and a good-not-great game like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, there's a big difference between Rocky and Bulwinkle and The Bouncer. The latter is a game with a handful of redeeming qualities that you could, in theory, play, you just wouldn't actually want to. The former is a barely functioning mess that's mere existence is enough to make a grown man cry. Also like good games, there is a certain level of consensus as to which games are considered terrible. Ask someone "what are the worst games of all time?" and you will surely get some level of variance in your answer. However, there are titles you will definitely here thrown out there more often than not: E.T., Rise of the Robots, BeBe's Kids, Action 52, on and on, etc., etc. Which brings us to to

  It's come to my attention that last week was the 30th anniversary of one of gaming's most iconic franchises: Mortal Kombat. I can't believe it's been 30 years since the bone crunching, blood gushing debut of MK, a franchise that's now a household name even outside of gaming circles. It may not have always given us the best games, but few IPs have had as much impact on media as a whole as Mortal Kombat. Not going to lie, I wasn't quite there from the beginning. I was only 4 in 1992 when the original game hit the arcade, I was dabbling in video games at the time but it's not like I could get in the car and drive myself to an arcade. It wasn't really the next year, when MKII hit the arcades where I got found the franchise for the first time. I will never forget walking into the arcade at the now-defunct Bowcraft, seeing the cabinet with Raiden calling down thunderbolts and thinking to myself "I have to play that." Of course my parents let me, th

  Hey wait, didn't you already play that? Nah, you guys aren't crazy, I already played Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for the SNES, quite a while ago at this point. This time, I'm previewing the Genesis version. But remember, the gaming industry wasn't always like it is now, where every game that gets released across different consoles is essentially the same. It's not that that never happened during the bit wars, because it did. Street Fighter II Turbo and Champion Edition are essentially the same and I could think of tons of examples like that. But in a lot of cases, especially during the 4th generation, every console got different versions of a game. And we aren't just talking slightly different, we are talking a completely different game entirely. I actually kind of like the way it is now, where each console gets the same version. Because back in the day, there was a lot of contention over which version of which game was better, especially between SNES a

  As someone who plays old games almost exclusively, I'm constantly reminded of how big the jump between console generations could be. Look at a PS4 game vs. a PS5 title, or an XBox One game vs. a Series S game and it can be hard to tell they are even from different generations. Sure, if you look more closely you can see the newer consoles are superior, but the differences don't always jump off the screen at you. But compare a PS1 game to a PS2 game, or an NES game to an SNES title and you will know the difference immediately. This was a major part of Sega's marketing strategy in the late 80's and early 90's, when the 16-bit Genesis was still competing directly with the 8-bit NES. Sure, the NES may have boasted a much larger library of games featuring some classic titles, but it was much easier to point to a simple screenshot of a Genesis game and say "look." Sure, it was a lot easier to do with some games than others. I've reviewed some earlier Genesi

  Let's dive back into the always fun world of 16-bit platformers. There were tons of these things back in the 90's, almost as many as there are first person shooters now. I've never actually looked up numbers, but I would guess they were either the most common genre of games released in the 3rd-5th generations or a close second to tournament fighters. Don't get me wrong, a lot of these are great games. But, much like FPS' and open world games now, a lot of these titles started to feel the same after a while. As such, developers started to do everything they could to make their games stand out. Some used gameplay gimmicks, others tried to turn up the level of violence and many (many) tried to drum up interest by slapping a popular license on their games. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it did go a long way in ensuring not every single platformer felt like a straight up clone of Mario or Sonic. Which brings us to Decap Attack, a 1991 platformer for

  When I started looking for games to review as part of TBS, I wasn't shocked to find that many of the candidates were either second or third games in their respective series'. I was, however, surprised to see how many of said candidates were first entries. Much as it was with Super Mario Bros. 2, developers would try and change it up for those entries before finally reverting to the style that put them on the map in the first place. That was common in the 3rd and even 4th generations. But it didn't always work out that way. There are several cases of developers starting a series with one type of game, only to completely pivot to something different and stay with it. Case in point, Shining in the Darkness. This is the very first game in the Shining series, known predominately for its turn-based strategy RPGs. I've already reviewed Shining Force 1 & 2 , both of which I liked quite a bit. I wanted to see where the series started, so I fired up SITD, expecting an ea