Gaming off the Beaten Path

 It's time to go back to the Sega Genesis well once again. No, I'm not confused, you are.  Yes, I'm sure its a Genesis game.  Just because Nintendo insisted on including the word "Super" in just about every SNES title doesn't mean Sega was contractually forbidden from using the word.  Besides, Super Thunder Blade came out before the SNES even existed. It was a launch title for the Genesis (or Mega Drive, depending on where you're from) when it came out in 1988 in Japan and would make its way to the U.S., also as a launch title, about a year later. Like so, so many of the SNES "Supers,"  Super Thunder Blade is a sorta-sequel to the arcade game Thunder Blade.  Sega added the Super to differentiate it from a similar port to its 8-bit Master System.  Yeah, weird, who knew Nintendo ripped that genius idea off of its hated rival?  The game is a 3rd person flying game, putting you in the cockpit of an attack helicopter as you attempt to shoot down as ma...

It’s been almost a year, but we are once again getting into a genre we haven’t touched yet. Flying games are a very, very niche genre, but I do consider them to be their own unique slice of the gaming pie.  They aren’t quite driving, aren’t quite vehicular combat and aren’t quite action.  I always want to like them more than I do.  I probably have as much of an enjoyment rate of flying games as I do racing games.  But whereas I generally recognize I am not a fan of racing titles, I just can’t stop having these things catch my eye. Warhawk certainly did when I saw a demo of it on the “PlayStation Picks” disk that came with the original console in 1995.  It wasn’t quite a launch title (it came out about 2 months after the system did), but just the 2-3 minute, non-playable demo made me take notice of this new player in the market.  Remember, this is the early age of 3D gaming and stuff like this was absolutely mind blowing when compa...