Remember When We Used to Get Nostalgic About Games?

So I couldn't finish Rocket Knight Adventures. Not because it was too difficult. Nor did I lose interest; it's still one of my favorite Genesis games. No, I couldn't finish it because my Genesis started freezing up, at random points late in the game. I'd blame the age of the system, but I remember this kind of thing happening on a sports game I used to have, College Football 1995 in, well, 1995.

I bought RKA used, a couple weeks ago, at one of the nicer retro game shops in town. I'd been looking for it specifically since I heard it praised on 1up's Retro Game Blog a while back. It was 5 bucks. Most of the games I pick up these days are under ten.


This is the first thing I saw after the Konami logo. The Rocket Knight (this game never explicitly uses his name Sparkster, at least as far as I got into it) pulls out his sword from behind him with a 'ching'. As soon as I heard it, something struck me about this game that I couldn't put my finger on. I watched the short intro, got to the menu, and started up a new game.

As soon as the Stage 1-1 song started playing (you can listen to a lot of the music here, which I recommend, because it's one of my favorite things about this game), it hit me. I'd definitely played this game before. Everything about it was familiar.

In the Genesis's heyday, I only owned three or four games. The vast majority of the games I played I rented at a mom'n'pop video store in my hometown called American Video (which closed up shop shortly after Hollywood Video came to town). American Video had pretty spotty selection, but chances are this is where I came across the game about a dog in a suit of armor with a rocket on his back. Well, at least he has a dog's nose, but the prehensile tail makes it more likely he's a monkey. Whatever.

Discovering that you've played a game over ten years ago is a bizarre experience. (In fact, the same thing happened to me when I played Dynamite Headdy recently, which is somewhat remarkable since that game sold poorly here in the States.) Video games, particularly those with dated sound cababilities, have a knack for burying themselves deep in your subconscious. I'd be interested if anyone else has had this experience. But ultimately, it's not something I seek out.

You might think that as a retro gamer, I enjoy playing games from my own past. For the most part, this is not true. This is because the majority of games I played 'back in the day' were pretty awful. The number of awful-to-mediocre movie or TV-licensed 16-bit platformers is truly staggering. I do actually remember the first three games (in order) I owned for my Genesis:

1. Lion King. Actually not that bad - it was a pack-in with my Genesis. A little short.
2. Home Alone 2. Laying clever traps for Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern sounds like fun at first, but after Joe trips over the water fountain spill for the sixteenth time, it gets wearisome.
3. Batman Forever. By far the worst of the bunch. Simple goons take forever to kill, and your subweapons are harder to activate than MK fatalities. Plus you have to hear Jim Carrey say "Riddle me this, Riddle me that" at least 30000 times. At least there are no bat-nipples.

All things considered, it's a wonder I keep my Genesis at all, instead of booting it out the window for giving me such awful memories.

As you can probably tell, nostalgia ranks pretty low on my list of reasons for being a retro gamer. So what are those reasons?

1. Price - No, I haven't played Suikoden 2. Most old games really are very cheap. And they usually work. And NES save batteries last a lot longer than you think.
2. Knowledge about what's good - I've always thought the best time to get a console is when the next one is coming out. I may have to rethink that, since the current generation is sticking around for a while.
3. Good games stay good. Now surely some games don't age well, while others are ahead of their time, and these are important and interesting issues. There will always be trends, and they tell us something. But games wouldn't be worth much as a medium if we let it stand that all our best games of today would become unplayable in ten years.

I have no special gripe with today's games. I do wish there were fewer space marines, but all generations have their quirks. I'm still very interested in where games are going, but I guess that's tempered since I'm generally a little late to the action.

Oh yeah, you should play Fallout 3. Good game.

Next time: ANYTHING but another Sega Genesis post, I promise.

Screenshot from mobygames.com.

A Sega Genesis Discussion (with 100% more 'tude)

One embarrassing fact about me: I own seven game consoles. Not counting handhelds. (Interesting fact #2: None of those are current generation. Yup, I'm poor.) So you can say that I'm a guy that likes console games.

It was not always this way. This is because the very first console I received, one very special Christmas in 1994 (I think), was the Sega Genesis. Looking back on it, I think I can say that if my parents had decided to get me an SNES, I would probably know a lot less than I do about PC adventure games.

It's not that the Genesis is a bad system; in fact, it was Sega's most successful console by a long shot. It broke the NES's long-standing dominance over the hearts of gamers and forced Nintendo to design a follow-up. For one or two years there, it was king. Unfortunately for the Genesis, Nintendo did pull through with a console that was better than it in every way; the SNES had better graphics, the most popular franchises, and more third-party support than you can shake a stick at. To be a Sega child was to be a spiteful one, and I didn't stick with the Genesis for very long.

Both today and then, the problem with the Genesis is that it's hard to know what games for it are any good; there are precious few franchises you can count on. When I was a kid, I stuck with crappy movie-licensed games because I didn't know any better. Now that I have the internet to inform me, what are the best Genesis games I've played? (Note I haven't gotten to any of the good Sega RPGs yet)

1. The Sonic games. Recently, I replayed 1,2,3, and Knuckles, beating them all for the first time. Yup, I was bad at platformers. Sonic 3 is actually my favorite, although they're all great.
2. The Treasure classics: Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, Alien Soldier (not released in US). Gunstar Heroes is perhaps my absolute favorite. I could not put down the controller when I first played this.
3. Rocket Knight Adventures (hope to talk about this game later, once I beat it)

And that's pretty much it; still one of my least favorite consoles. But I have to say that the games on this list pretty much all demonstrate the Genesis' trademark, which Sega endlessly promoted with its blue furry mascot: character. These platformers/run'n'guns are so good because each level is filled to the brim with colorful backgrounds, multi-sprite multi-phase bosses, and a fun well-utilized gameplay mechanic. And they all have pretty good soundtracks. I love my NES, but the Genesis went a long way to make games exciting, and that's still true today.