Hey all! Thanks for stopping by. I realise it’s been a while since my last post, but these things happen. Sometimes real life takes over with a veritable shitstorm of stupid things happening, and this was one of those times. This is not the place, nor is it the time to talk about these things, but suffice to say that blogging hasn’t been at the forefront of my mind just recently.
Still, I plan to change that now and get back into the habit, and what better way to get back into things than with a good old-fashioned retro games post? You’re absolutely right, there is no better way!
Okay. So my old Xbox 360 semi-died on me recently, with the DVD drive pretty much giving up the ghost and on several occasions failing to register that there was even a disc in the drive. This, of course, is a problem for a fundamentally DVD-based system – and also, the Xbox was acting as our primary DVD player in the house, too, thanks to its fancy-pants upscaling shenanigans.
So eventually after a bit of umming and ahhing we (yes, we) decided to purchase a new one. I picked up the new Premium, or Pro, or whatever they’re calling it now, with the 60GB hard drive, which will be nice. That 20GB drive on the old one filled up surprisingly quickly. However, I do wish Microsoft had had the decency to include a transfer cable in the box. You can get one for free by sending off a form to them (through the post… no online request option, how quaint… and inconvenient) but mine hasn’t arrived yet, so I’m using my new 360 with my old hard drive at present. FAIL.
The point, though.
Game were doing a couple of bundles with the 60GB model. One was with Call of Duty 4, a game which I know is fabulously good and marvellous and the best thing ever but I really have very little interest in whatsoever. What did interest me, however, was the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (or Sega Genesis Fuckfest as Tolkoto of the Exploding Barrel Podcast memorably dubbed it), which was the other game on offer. The irony of the fact I spent nearly £200 on a console only to get a bunch of Mega Drive games with it was not lost on me. You know what else plays Mega Drive games and costs approximately a tenth of an Xbox 360? A Mega Drive!
That’s not entirely fair, of course, because the 360 version of the Mega Drive collection comes with a veritable plethora of 16-bit entertainment including all the expected things (Sonic 1, 2, 3, Sonic and Knuckles followed by various Sonic spinoffs as the blue spiny dude’s credibility slowly began to wane, like a slow descent into alcoholism and drug abuse) plus some things that I personally am very glad to see in there but many others likely won’t give a damn about (Phantasy Star 1, 2, 3, 4 and Shining Force, Shining Force II and Shining in the Darkness) and some other things besides. Purchasing (let alone locating) all these Mega Drive games would take time and money, whereas there’s apparently over 40 titles to play with in this collection. I say “apparently” as they seem remarkably reluctant to list all the titles in too many places. Perhaps this means there’s some pleasant surprises tucked away somewhere.
What struck me having played a few of these is that many of these games are still fundamentally excellent games. Sonic in particular still plays very well, although it’s easy to forget with the rose-tinted spectacles quite how frustrating it was at times. It’s also interesting to play a properly optimised version of these games finally. I’ve spent my whole life thinking that one of Sonic 2’s great new features was the fact it ran at approximately twice the speed of the original Sonic. Not true. The PAL version of Sonic 2 ran at roughly twice the speed of the original PAL version of Sonic. In fact, this collection has taught me that Sonic 1 is actually quite fast and the original PAL port was one of the shoddiest 60-50Hz hack jobs of all time.
There’s also some pleasant curios on the collection, too. I never knew the Mega Drive played host to a Roguelike, for example, but it did, in the form of Fatal Labyrinth (which is one of those examples of Japanese titling where two random, vaguely related words are thrown together) – an absolutely shameless remake of Rogue with 16-bit sprite graphics and smooth scrolling. It doesn’t have much in the way of depth (as the original Rogue didn’t – it wasn’t until later titles like Moria and Angband that they became the behemoths they are today) but it includes a lot of the elements that make Rogue fun – the fact you don’t know what anything does until you take a risk and use it being the main one. Chug back a potion and you might suddenly be stronger. Conversely, you might suddenly go blind. It’s as brutal as Rogue and, despite its simplicity, it’s actually fun and addictive.
There’s a whole batch of unlockable extras too, with the usual video interviews that you get with this kind of package, but also a selection of Master System and arcade titles too. All in all, it’s a great package that I will certainly enjoy delving into on a regular basis. Plenty of interesting Achievements to go for too – they’re not just of the “Complete Sonic” variety, there’s a little bit of creativity there, too. The Achievements are also used to unlock the additional content, too, so that actually gives you some incentive to go for them, too.
Anyway. More soon. I have plenty of things I want to talk about over the next few days, not least of which include Persona 4 along with City of Heroes and its new expansion, the Mission Architect.
See you soon.