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I remember the megadrive well, it had some of the best 2D platform games and arcade conversions available, thanks to the fact that it was a Sega machine. Although against the SNES it looked weak, it was the games that the Snes never had, or didn't do very well, that really sold the machine, things like the classic Golden Axe and Outrun. These were some of my favorite all-time games and top amongst them was the incredible Sonic the Hedgehog. In fact, I've now got the sonic jam compilation on the Saturn and Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast, based mainly on playing it originally on the megadrive.
Golden Axe on the megadrive was excellent too, almost all the bits from the arcade were faithfully reproduced and the best part was not having to put endless amounts of ten pences in to complete it!
There are many other classics, Streets of Rage (1,2 and 3), Columns - the only good rival to tetris and lots more that made the megadrive such a special machine to own. The only thing I just can't believe is how long ago that was!
Sony made gaming "mainstream" and more "cool" by introducing the concept of the casual gamer - suddenly gaming was targetted at the older gamers (by this I mean 18 - 25). So why was this bad? Well, sony and other companies producing for the PSX then spewed out hundreds (no - it's thousands now isn't it?) of mindless fighting/racing games. How many good PSX games are there, excluding figthing gamesor racing games and titles that have been released on other formats? Exactly! You could barely name a dozen, and I feel I hardly need to tell you that as a percentage.......
We don't need a Ridge Racer 12, or a Tekken 8, lets have something DIFFERENT.
Let's have something that has not been done before, like the first releases of lemmings or worms, or to a lesser extent, mario64 (first 3d adventure/platformer?) and Bomberman.
Two boys were looking at the new Streetfighter Alpha game and one turned and said "Ah, that's the sequel to an old game, StreetFighter II" The other nodded and said "I think I remember that in the arcades, why was it called StreetFighter II when it was the first game, I mean, there wasn't a streetfighter I was there?"
And all of gaming history started to disappear in front of me, I would have said something but, well, it seemed like a lost cause. The younger gamers would never know what playing the original (and it was original back then) StreetFighter game on the Spectrum and not realising how big the sequel would be, playing the Ultimate (play the game) games, not realising that the creators would go on to set up Rare. Oh well, I am getting on a bit!
Back in the good old days, berofe that nufangled playstation came along and ruined everything...
I had to save up 5 years to buy a game and then walk 20 miles to get to the shop, in the snow, then buy the game, then walk the same 20 miles back, if you were lucky you could get a lift for the last 5 miles on the back of the tractor on the way to the silage dump...
and it wasn't the kind of fluttery snow you get these days, oh no...
streets of rage and syndicate, rest in peace
I used to love going to the arcades and shoveling money into Street Fighter 2. Once while I was on Holiday in Spain I spent two hours playing Final Fight continuosly with my brother as it was so cheap.
Oh, those were the days. We used to speculate on whether home consoles would ever get as good as the arcade machines. If we could have forseen the sort of games that are available for home systems now we wouldnt have believed it.
Games are pure escapism and although it is a shame that they have become so main stream in some ways it has its benefits.
On that subject, he also has the fantastic Metal Slug, which is one of the best arcade games ever! There are so many nive little touches in the backgrounds and graphics that you only notice after you've played it several times. It just shows how good the old arcade machines were in those days! I agree that this seemed to be the golden age of games, partly because it seemed that not everyone was into games so you felt that you had found something special.
Ah, the memories!
I purchased mine at a computer show in London. A Japanese Megadrive and the first system that I had saved up for myself. I came home with Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (or whatever it was called) and ESWAT. Not particularly good games compared to some of the games that graced the system later in its life BUT at the time I thought they were amazing.
Lets not forget the Shinobi games. They were absolutely brilliant on the Megadrive. I think that the Megadrive/SNES period was probably the Golden age of gaming. Nintendo and Sega are the true games companies and when Sony first entered the ring I was dead against them succeeding. They were outsiders in my opinion. After some of the brilliant games that have appeared on the Playstation I have come round and admit that Sony have helped to introduce new games and genres to the gaming world.
I never purchased a Playstation but I have a PS2 ordered and hope that I will get back to enjoying games as much as I used too in those golden days.