Player One Podcast

Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: Extended Play Productions
Release: 1994

If you follow this website you probably know about my other series, Generation 16. The episode I’m currently working on there features the first soccer game on the Genesis: World Cup Soccer.

By coincidence, FIFA International Soccer is the next game in WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL. And playing these two games back to back drives home the fact that the 16-bit era is really when console sports games became a big deal.

Sports games were very basic on consoles in the early days. The point was mostly to recreate the on-field experience in the simplest way possible, with almost no thought given to presentation, authenticity or even accessibility. Camera angles were always either directly overhead or “television” angles that did not give players a big enough view of the field.

During the 90s, publishers like EA started taking sports games more seriously, looking to make simulations rather than arcade experiences. Licensed teams and players had a lot to do with this, sure. But more importantly, sports games were being made with the player in mind. Case in point: the isometric view used in FIFA International Soccer.

With this view you see a huge amount of the field, and thus can set up passing plays a lot easier than in a lot of previous soccer games. In fact, it just makes overall field awareness so much easier than earlier sports games, where it felt like players who weren’t on the screen weren’t really even on the field.

Not that this was the first game to do this (in fact, the FIFA series itself hit the Genesis a year before the Sega CD version was released), but it’s definitely a great example of the leaps and bounds sports games in general made between the late eighties and mid nineties. And, of course, we all know what kind of business the genre has become in the years that followed.

FIFA International Soccer on the Sega CD also showed off the system’s capabilities in another way, beyond your standard redbook audio and full-motion video clips of real players doing amazing things on the pitch. The sound effects were incredible – especially the crowd noise. One thing that a lot of people don’t remember about the Sega CD is that it boosted the much-maligned sound system from the barebones Genesis. The combo still wasn’t able to produce a lot of the quality stuff you’d hear on the SNES, but it sure sounded a lot better than what you’d get on a cartridge if the development team bothered to take advantage.

I think the crowd sounds incredible in this game. And I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with using redbook audio. You can hear great recreations of crowd chanting and reactions to plays on the pitch. Alternatively, EA’s NHL Hockey on the Sega CD used a recording of an arena crowd played on a loop, augmented by reaction effects done through the standard sound system. The feature was quite effective, too, until everything went quiet when the recording ended and the laser had to seek to the front of the track again.

I think FIFA sounds better.

This series received a lot of much-deserved praise back in the day, and FIFA on the Sega CD stands as one of the best representations of it on a 16-bit console.

Greg Sewart EA Sports, Extended Play Productions, FIFA Soccer, Sega CD

Here it is! The second episode of Generation 16, the series where I explore the games of Sega’s Mega Drive. This episode features the games released in the first part of 1989, leading up to the American release of the Genesis.

Games featured in this episode are:
- Phantasy Star II
- Tommy Lasorda Baseball
- Super Daisenryaku
- Thunder Force II
- Last Battle

Also, here’s an Archive.org link for you!

Greg Sewart Fist of the North Star, Generation 16, Genesis, Last Battle, Mega Drive, Phantasy Star II, Sega, Super Daisenryaku, Super League, Thunder Force II, Tommy Lasorda Baseball

Publisher: JVC
Developer: SNK (original)/Funcom (port)
Release: 1994

You know how publishers fall all over themselves to release first-person shooters nowadays? Well back in the early ’90s, the hot genre was one-on-one fighting games. Street Fighter II ruled the world, while everyone else scrambled for Capcom’s table scraps.

Most failed. But one publisher/developer in particular managed to gain a foothold in the genre by pumping out one fighting series after another – many times taking character designs and moves right out of Capcom’s playbook – on their own hardware. SNK seemed almost entirely focused on beating Capcom at their own game back then. Their Neo Geo hardware was home to series like Art of Fighting, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, World Heroes, and of course, Fatal Fury.

And each of the games in the above list was a series. Fatal Fury Special is actually an update to Fatal Fury 2. This was a pretty common practice during the time – Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Champion Edition, Street Fighter II Turbo, etc. Fatal Fury Special features all of the fighters from FF2, along with playable boss characters, extra fighters from the original Fatal Fury, and even a cameo by Ryo Sakazaki from the Art of Fighting series.

While they were generally good, SNK’s fighters tended to be pretty experimental. While SNK was attempting to emulate Capcom in some ways, it was also trying to create its own, unique style of fighting game. And so a lot of these earlier brawlers had their share of warts.

Fatal Fury, for instance, featured a multi-plane level design, where characters were able to leap from the foreground to the background whenever they liked. Although this added an element of depth not seen in a lot of other fighters, it also made things pretty confusing. As I played I found myself spending more time hopping from plane to plane than actually engaging my opponent.

As far as quality goes, Fatal Fury Special on the Sega CD doesn’t stand up to the Neo Geo original – the animation is relatively choppy and the voice samples disappointing – but it’s still a very strong port. In fact, most of the SNK fighting game ports for the 16-bit consoles were pretty decent back then, and I remember the Genesis ones in particular garnering some praise.

Fun fact: this is one of the first published games developed by Norwegian software house Funcom. Their first three games were all SNK fighter ports for the Sega CD (along with a port of World Heroes that was never released). Some of you may recognize the name as the publisher/developer of the long-running MMO Anarchy Online, which has been going strong for over a decade now.

Greg Sewart Fatal Fury, Funcom, JVC, Sega CD, SNK, World Heroes

Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega Studios
Release: 1995

Full-motion video games were, for the most part, pretty bad. Although I enjoy a few of them, they pretty much sucked. And Fahrenheit is a perfect example of why they sucked.

Playing this game now, one of the first things that strikes me is that the production values are actually pretty darn good as far as Sega CD FMV games go. The sets look convincing, as do all the props. And that’s no mean feat considering the whole game is based on entering burning buildings.

I also have to say that it sounds like the casting couch was located somewhere north of the 49th parallel – the actors all seem to have very noticeable Canadian accents. A little research uncovered that this is indeed the case for a few of them, and also that Sega cast a bunch of stunt people in the main character roles (which I guess explains the bad acting to a degree). A lot of the main cast is still active today, in fact.

But the reason that it sucks is that its game play is almost entirely based on trial-and-error.

Take the first house, for example. Most of the family has escaped the burning home, but you’re informed that one of the daughters may still be inside. And so you are tasked with entering the house, disposing of any hazardous materials and saving any people who might be trapped.

Game play is comprised of various video clips shot from a first-person view, accompanied by on-screen indicators of the choices at your disposal. These can be directional arrows or action commands. All are shown with a timer, which, if it runs out indicates that the game will make the (wrong) decision for you.

The problem is that the camera is constantly moving, so it’s next to impossible to get your bearings. And even if you do push “up” while facing a door, it’s not guaranteed you’ll actually head in that direction at all.

Also, most of the major decisions are absolutely random, with no real tell as to what the proper choice is. Sure, you definitely want to get rid of that kerosene heater that may explode. But when you want ot turn off the gas to the range, you’re presented with three valves to choose from. None of them stand out, and none of your teammates has any advice that helps you choose which valve to turn. So, turn the wrong one, and you lose. Start over.

The whole game is like this, and it’s a crying shame. The premise is actually a very cool one, not to mention pretty unique as far as video games go. And with production values higher than you normally see on the average Sega CD FMV game, Fahrenheit just begs to be played.

Fahrenheit is also unique in another way – as far as I know this is the only dual-format Sega CD/32X game release in the US (perhaps the world). When you bought Fahrenheit, it came on three discs – a Sega CD disc, a 32X disc, and a Key Disc. The Key Disc needed to be loaded first, followed by whichever version of the game you wanted to play. The function of the key disc was to supposedly keep players from selling the version of the game they didn’t want.

NOTE: The images that accompany this article were taken from the 32X version of the game.

Greg Sewart 32X, Fahrenheit, Sega, Sega CD

My WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL series not enough to satisfy your classic Sega cravings, you say? I feel your pain. And so I’m here to introduce a new Sega-based series on the Player One Podcast: Generation 16.

Generation 16 is a video series chronicling the rise and fall of the Mega Drive through examining each one of its games, as well as the major events in the gaming industry during its lifetime. Each episode will cover five titles, with new episodes coming out as fast as I can produce them.

Please check out Episode 1, and enjoy!

Featured Games:
- Space Harrier II
- Super Thunder Blade
- Altered Beast
- Osomatsu-kun: Hachamecha Gekijo
- Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle

Greg Sewart Alex Kidd, Altered Beast, Genesis, Mega Drive, Osomatsu-kun, Sega, Space Harrier, Thunder Blade, Video Games

Publisher: FCI/Pony Canyon
Developer: Westwood Associates
Release: 1994

Before they became known as the fathers of the real-time strategy genre, Westwood Studios (aka Westwood Associates, back in the day) was probably most well-known for this game. Eye of the Beholder, a dungeon-crawler set in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons universe, was their first big hit.

Set in the troubled city of Waterdeep, the game follows the exploits of a party of heroes hired by the Lords of the city to investigate an evil presence emanating from beneath the city. The group begins their quest in the sewers, where they are promptly trapped thanks to an inconveniently timed cave-in at the entrance.

What follows is a classic, PC-style dungeon crawl where monsters are battled, spells are learned, loot is collected and…well…you get the picture.

The titular Beholder is the game’s final boss, Xanathar. When I was researching this entry I was interested to learn that the original PC release of the game featured absolutely no fanfare when the Beholder was slain. Instead players were treated to a blue box with a bit of text, and then dumped back out to DOS. This was rectified in subsequent versions of the game, starting with the Amiga port.

What’s more strange is that Eye of the Beholder was widely praised for its cinematic intro (something that was quite rare at the time, considering games were published on floppy discs). The story goes that this was a judgement call by the game’s producers – the intro took up so much space that they decided to cut the planned ending sequence, as they figured most gamers would never get to that point anyway.

It’s a problem that still plagues game developers to this day: do you blow your load early and make sure everyone sees your most impressive work at the expense of a traditional climax? Or do you build to your best work over a series of hours and run the risk that a high percentage of your players will never experience the crescendo?

Like the previously-covered Dungeon Master II, Eye of the Beholder suffers from the PC-to-console controller syndrome. This game was designed to be controlled by a mouse. Everything from movement to combat requires on-screen buttons to be virtually pressed by a pointer. And doing this with a Genesis controller was a huge pain in the ass.

Luckily, the Sega CD version featured full support for Sega’s Mega Mouse, which was an official mouse peripheral for the Genesis. And wow, did it ever make this game supremely playable.

There is one other interesting tidbit about Eye of the Beholder on the Sega CD. Of all the ports of the game, the Sega CD version features an exclusive soundtrack by none other than Yuzo Koshiro, the man behind the insanely great tunes in games like Streets of Rage 2 and ActRaiser. Not only that, but this was his very first CD-based game soundtrack. And, as you would expect, it’s pretty damn good.

Greg Sewart Eye of the Beholder, FCI, Pony Canyon, Sega CD, Westwood Studios, Yuzo Koshiro

Publisher: Sega Deep Water
Developer: Sega Interactive Development Division
Release: 1995

Mankind is doomed. These are the end times.

The downfall of mankind can be directly traced to the untimely deaths of a few key individuals. In an effort to rectify this situation, the Eternal Champion – a god-like, time traveling entity who is the protector of the balance of good – has snatched these individuals at the moment of their deaths. They are to be entered into a tournament, the winner of which will have the chance to go back to their lives and affect changes that will ultimately reverse mankind’s end.

Challenge From the Dark Side is the first and only sequel to 1993′s Eternal Champions, which was a US-developed fighting game exclusive to the Genesis – Sega’s way to cash in on the fighting game craze at the time.

Challenge From the Dark Side features all nine combatants from the original game, as well as four new faces: Dawson, Ramses III, Raven and Riptide. As an added ripple, players are introduced to the Dark Champion, who is the protector of the balance of evil. He has been hiding four combatants of his own, and has decided that now is the time to reveal them. Like the original group, these four have a part to play in the reversal of mankind’s fate.

Eternal Champions was a pretty successful game, all things considered. The fighting game arena was dominated by Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat back in the day, and while Sega managed to get the latter on their system in a timely manner, the former was a SNES exclusive for quite a while. So you could kind of consider Eternal Champions their answer to Street Fighter II in the same way that the Streets of Rage series was an answer to the SNES exclusivity of Final Fight.

The time-travelling storyline allowed for some pretty fantastic characters in the Eternal Champions universe. You’ve got everything from a cave man to an Atlantean to an Egyptian Pharoah facing off against a coporate assassin, Russian acrobat, cybernetically enhanced kickboxer and a 1920′s era mobster.

Most of the fighting styles in Eternal Champions were based on real-life martial arts, much like Street Fighter II. There were still a lot of fantastical moves, but overall the combat feels very grounded in realism.

And yet the game also features moves akin to Mortal Kombat’s infamous Fatalities. The original Eternal Champions featured location-based Overkills, where taking down an opponent at a specific spot in the stage would set them up for a gruesome death, such as getting knocked into a lion’s cage or electrocuted by a neon sign.

Challenge From the Dark Side took it a bit further, though. The game introduced Sudden Deaths, where a character with 15% or less life left could suddenly die under specific circumstances – in Larcen’s stage the ticket lady at the theatre will bust out a gun and shoot the loser to death.

Vendettas are pretty much like Fatalities, in that a character could perform a specific button combination in front of a dizzied opponent in order to take them out in a suitably grizzly fashion.

Finally, there were the Cinekills. Here the Dark Champion appears in a pre-rendered video and kills the losing character in a way which supposedly represents their worst fears.

Anyway, enough talk about death. Eternal Champions was a fun, inspired fighter. The Genesis game was a bit too difficult for my tastes, but Challenge From the Dark Side introduced a difficulty setting that somewhat alleviated the problem.

And, of course, the game played a thousand times better when using Sega’s fantastic 6-button controller. Those stuck with the standard 3-button pad had to use the start button to toggle between punches and kicks. This was pretty standard on most fighting games for the system.

Eternal Champions has been pretty much forgotten by those were weren’t into the game back in the day, but has a real cult following as well. Probably none so much as the unreleased Eternal Champions for the Sega Saturn.

Advertised on the back of the Saturn’s box, this final game in the trilogy never made it out of pre-production. According to Executive Producer and Designer Michael Latham, the game was to have introduced a third being that represented Chaos, and the dark and light combatants from the previous games were to have worked together to restore time and space. Latham claims that the game was canceled because Sega of Japan felt that the series would draw too much attention from the Virtua Fighter series, which had become a flagship franchise for them.

There were a couple of Eternal Champions spin-offs, though. X-Perts on the Genesis chronicled the exploits of assassin Shadow Yamamoto. In this alternate timeline she survives the attempt on her life (perhaps she won the tournament?) and puts together a team of assassins tasked with ending the corporate corruption that lead to the assassination attempt in the first place.

The second game is Chicago Syndicate. This side-scrolling beat-em-up for the Game Gear follows the story of Larcen Tyler – the mobster originally murdered in the 1920s. Like Shadow, in his spin-off he has survived the attempt on his life and it has turned him into an anti-mob crusader.

Challenge From the Dark Side also represents the first use of Sega’s Deep Water publishing label. The label was meant to signify games that featured adult content (obviously we’re talking about violence, here). This is the first of only three games ever to use the label, the other two being the aforementioned X-Perts and 1997′s Duke Nukem 3D on the Sega Saturn.

Eternal Champions: Challenge From the Dark Side is one of the true gems of the Sega CD’s library. It represents not only what was great about the system, but about Sega in general.

Greg Sewart Deep Water, Eternal Champions, Michael Latham, Sega, Sega CD

Publisher: Sony Imagesoft
Developer: Ringler Studios
Release: 1994

Finally! We’ve reached the last of the ESPN sports games for the Sega CD from Sony Imagesoft. This is arguably the most important one of the group. After all, the NFL is pretty much like a religion in the US.

Sunday Night NFL is one of only two authentic NFL football games for the console (the other being Sega’s Joe Montana game). EA Sports never bothered releasing Madden on the Sega CD, though they did put out a disc version of Bill Walsh College Football.

And considering how bug-ridden Joe Montana ended up, I guess this is the best NFL game on the system by default. It’s too bad, then, that it’s such a bare-bones title – even with the NFL and ESPN licenses, Ringler Studios didn’t do much in the way of presentation here. The title screen doesn’t even have play any music. Heck, it doesn’t even tell you to press start. You figure that out when the game automatically launches into demo mode.

Sunday Night NFL features all 28 NFL teams from 1994, and gives players the option of playing a single game, a season, a playoff series, or the chance to play through the 1994 NFL schedule. The game also includes weather changes, and apparently the players actually react to changing weather, though I couldn’t really tell if this was the case.

Unfortunately, Sunday Night NFL does not have an NFLPA license, so none of the pro players are included in the game.

The game itself plays pretty well considering how old it is. Graphics and presentation are very reminiscent of the Madden NFL series, with the same 3D, down-the-field view that series made popular. Play calling is interesting, too, in that players could choose from nine offensive plays with single button presses. I think this is actually six more than the Madden quick-select menus offered at the time, so in that regard, the ESPN game is actually a bit more advanced.

Honestly, though, with such a spartan presentation and nothing particularly great happening on the field, ESPN Sunday Night NFL doesn’t leave much of an impression. Not necessarily a bad game, just forgettable.

Greg Sewart ESPN, NFL, Ringler Studios, Sega CD, Sony Imagesoft

Publisher: Sony Imagesoft
Developer: Sony Imagesoft
Release: 1994

The parade of ESPN-branded sports games continues its slow, agonizing march. I don’t have any history with NBA HangTime ’95, so I went into this thinking I was about to experience the only authentic NBA simulator on the system – the only other NBA title on the Sega CD was NBA Jam, to my knowledge.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that HangTime ’95 is actually a half-court, 2-on-2 hoops game whose only link to the NBA is the roster of 90s-era players. This is basically a much less exciting NBA Jam. And no, it’s no relation to the later NBA HangTime series from Midway.

The game is played from a half-court perspective, where the players run in and out of the screen in 3D space. If the system’s hardware scaling is being utilized here, I really can’t tell. Everything is really bland and boring to look at. And when you consider the game play is more or less the basis for the fantastic NBA Jam minus all of the crazy power ups and spectacular dunks, you just have to wonder what in the world would ever make this game worth playing?

There is one semi-interesting thing about HangTime, however. Not only is it the only ESPN game on the Sega CD that goes for a more arcadey experience rather than sports simulation – there’s an entirely separate World Tour mode included. This is accessed from the front end, where you press the A Button to switch to an entirely new, ESPN2-branded title screen and menu system.

The whole vibe here is much more 90s hip and edgy, which isn’t surprising considering that was the main focus of “The Deuce” when it first went live in 1993.

World Tour features none of the licensed players found in the HangTime side of the game. Rather, you choose to play as a selection of racial and regional stereotypes. The Canadian team, of course, features two Eskimos wearing thick parkas, while the Japanese team is made up of two sumo wrestlers in their traditional in-ring garb. Awesome.

The game play, though, is exactly the same. World Tour is basically a re-skin of HangTime.

This appears to be one of the more rare Sega CD games out there. It’s pretty difficult to find a lot of information on it at all – in my admittedly short research time I was even able to find an ebay auction where a pretty worn, boxed copy of the game went for almost $50.

One more ESPN game to go.

Greg Sewart ESPN, ESPN2, NBA, Sega CD, Sony Imagesoft

Publisher: Sony Imagesoft
Developer: Park Place Productions
Release: 1994

Here we have the second of four ESPN-licensed sports games from Sony for the Sega CD. In the last instalment of this series I covered the baseball game, which was downright atrocious. National Hockey Night isn’t quite as bad as all that, but when you consider the only real competition on the system was EA’s own NHL 94 – considered one of the best hockey games of all time – National Hockey Night was doomed if it was anything less than perfect.

And that it was.

While National Hockey Night isn’t completely broken, it doesn’t really play very well, either. Players have a strange sort of momentum that makes them really difficult to control. It’s not uncommon to check an opponent off the puck, only to have him get back up and regain possession while you struggle to move your player into position.

Passing is a pain in the ass, too. Unlike EA’s NHL games, where aiming in the general direction of one of your players usually resulted in a successful hand-off, directional control in National Hockey Night is so touchy that it feels next to impossible to complete a pass on purpose. Aiming a shot is also next to impossible, it seems. The puck seems pretty much attracted to the goalie, and doesn’t feel like it reacts at all to your direction.

It’s safe to say that NHL 94 is a better game than National Hockey Night in almost every way. And the shocking bit is, of course, that Park Place Productions developed both titles! I guess there’s a lot to be said for publisher involvement.

National Hockey Night does have a couple of interesting things going for it, though.

Up until EA’s NHL series, most hockey games were played from a side view (like the coverage you see on television). This view is more or less horrible, as the goalie sprite tends to take up a huge chunk of real-estate in front of the net, making it hard to judge exactly how much room you have between the pipes when you take a shot.

Even after EA’s NHL Hockey came out, it was still pretty common to see this view (Sega’s own Mario Lemieux Hockey and NHL All-Star Hockey come to mind). National Hockey Night, though, actually includes both views – the more TV-like side camera and the extremely more playable vertical camera.

National Hockey Night also features some of that great multimedia shoehorning that was so common back in the early 90s. But rather than doing full-motion video highlight reels or commentary (though National Hockey Night does feature a bit of the latter), this game does something else entirely – randomly during play the game will cut to full-motion video clips of hits, shots, and saves based on what’s happening out on the ice.

Few problems, here: First of all, each of these clips needs to load, and then the game proper needs to load up again once the clip has stopped playing. So all this really does is disrupt the flow of the game. That wouldn’t be so bad, though, if the clips featured the same teams that were actually on the ice (let alone the same players or situations). For example: as my Penguins goalie lays a Nordique forward flat in the actual game, I’m treated to a scene where two Flyers are flattening one of the LA Kings.

I understand the logistical issues behind showing the right teams at all times, but shouldn’t the very nature of the problem have been a huge red flag on this feature in the first place?

Anyway, that’s ESPN National Hockey Night. Two ESPN games down, two to go.

Greg Sewart ESPN, NHL Hockey, Park Place Productions, Sony Imagesoft ESPN