Player One Podcast

It would be really easy to sit here and dump on The Animals for a few hundred words. After all, not only is this a lame “edutainment” title, but it perfectly presents exactly why this kind of software never belonged on the Sega CD in the first place – what with its limited color palette and postage-stamp sized videos.

But that would be a bit unfair. You kind of have to take yourself back to the early 90s, and really think about where CD-ROM was as a medium back then. These little silver discs represented a brave new world of computer and video game softare. No one seems really certain exactly what to do with them at first, though large databases of interesting information seemed a logical choice given the massive amount of storage they had.

Remember, video – even crappy, tiny, grainy video – was not really something you saw too often on a computer screen back then.

And when you do a bit of digging, you realize that this particular bit of software was actually a landmark event. It was one of the most successful, early CD-ROM encyclopedia programs, selling over 3 million copies in its first three years. The developer – now-defunct Arnowitz Studios – was well known as a pioneer of educational and teaching programs back in the day.

The Sega CD version (along with the 3DO version) are basically just products of a new technology trying to find its way. When you think about it, most of the early CD console libraries pretty much fit that description.

That being said, though, the transition from PC program to Sega CD disc was obviously a pretty rocky one. This game cries out for a mouse in order to navigate the slightly confusing Zoo Map front end. And when you get into the sub-menus, it’s still pretty slow going as your little dude, “Ping,” ambles from one entry icon to another.

Not to mention the extremely grainy video and images you get to look at. I’ve never seen the PC version of this program, but I’ve got to believe the VGA/SVGA images and video were a lot prettier than what the Sega CD’s extremely limited color palette could offer.

Publisher Mindscape is still around, though you’d be forgiven for never having heard of them, as they’re mostly doing more edutainment sofware nowadays (a lot of it on the DS). The publisher was a bit more prominent in the 16-bit days, though. And while researching their history for this article, I was reminded that they are actually the group that brought the seminal Wing Commander PC game to the SNES, and touched off my subsequent love of the series. I actually bought a 3DO when I learned that Wing Commander 3 was coming to that system. I also based my first computer purchase largely on whether it could run Wing Commander 4.

So I’m totally not certain whether I should love Mindscape or not…

Next Up: One of the greatest games of all time – Batman Returns.

Greg Sewart Sega CD

Back in the mid-90s, the shooter (or “shmup.” God, I hate that word) was king. In the home gaming market, the Genesis in particular seemed to play home to most of the great shooters on the market. The Sega CD? Not so much. But there were a few of them on there. And they were pretty cool, if only for the CD perks they featured — big, sprite-animation cut scenes; redbook audio; and…well, that was usually it.

Android Assault falls pretty much squarely into the “coulda been on the Genesis” category of Sega CD games, as did most shooters on the system. And it’s not really an amazing shooter, to boot. But it’s not all that bad, either.

The story is, well, unimportant. Some sort of evil is threatening the galaxy, you’re the only hope for peace, and you go blow said evil shit up for a few levels. The key difference in Android Assault is that you’re piloting something more than your standard starfighter — your pretty ship can turn into an awesome giant robot!

It actually sounds a bit cooler than it ends up being. For, when you turn into this robot, it just sort of flies around the screen, frozen in a single pose. It’s really nothing more than an on-screen indicator that your current weapon has been upgraded to the highest level, actually. But to 90s Greg, it was still pretty neat.

Android Assault is relatively short and easy as shooters go. It does fire out a few pretty unique levels, though. The long descent to a planet surface, followed by a lengthy battle beneath that planet’s ocean is definitely not something you saw every day back then. And the bosses tend to be rather large, as well, with a few of them even filling the screen.

Android Assault was published in North America by Big Fun Games. I can’t for the life of me find out anything about this company — not even if they published anything else here.

The developer, however, is one I’m sure a few folks have heard of. Human Entertainment is likely better known in most circles as the house behind the FirePro Wrestling series, along with the Clock Tower games that enjoyed a bit of success on the PlayStation. It also spat out a few Formula 1 games over the years. They folded in 1999, and this was their only Sega CD title.

There is a more contemporary connection, though. Human Entertainment was the first development house to employ Goichi Suda — aka Suda51, of No More Heroes and Killer7 fame.

See? The Sega CD is the system that just keeps on giving and giving.

Next Up: The Animals!

Greg Sewart Big Fun Games, Human Entertainment, Killer7, No More Heroes, Sega CD, Suda51, Video Games

So how about that new Boy and His Blob game for the Wii? Did you know that the original NES game it’s based on was coded by none other than David “Pitfall” Crane? If you’re old enough to remember the actual game when it was released, I bet you did know that.

What does that have to do with A/X-101? Well, during my paltry bit of research into this Sega CD shooter, I found out that the publisher – Absolute Entertainment – was actually co-founded by the very same David Crane. The same David Crane that left Atari to help form Activision. Another cool tidbit – Absolute was named as such because it’s alphabetically ahead of Activision, which was in turn alphabetically ahead of Atari (somewhat of a naming convention among this crowd – see also: Accolade and Acclaim). I guess David and his Absolute pals won that confusing little war.

So yeah…A/X-101 has a bit of a pedigree, I guess.

Not that Crane or Absolute had anything to do with the actual coding of this full-motion video extravaganza. That was handled by Micronet, a Japanese game developer that you’ve probably never heard of. Its lineup of games is pretty mediocre, all-told, though the company apparently still exists. It hasn’t been in the games business since the Dreamcast era, though – it’s a 3D graphic development house now, according to Wikipedia.

The game? Oh! Well…it’s awful. This is one of a handful of full-motion video shooters that came out for the Sega CD, to mixed results. Similar games like Star Wars Rebel Assault and Silpheed were pretty playable and not all that un-good, while other stuff like A/X-101 and Microcosm were just a big, garbled mess of super-low-res full-motion, pre-rendered video playing backdrop to otherwise crappy, boring enemies to shoot in the foreground.

This game is probably more a product of the industry back then, and its desparate need to integrate Hollywood and Silicon Valley into everything. A/X-101 just grinds along, with no music, no excitement, and little to do in the actual game play department. And everything is bookended by some horrendously-acted cinema scenes that are literally comprised of pallette-swapped “pilots” going throgh a single animation over and over again. Brilliant stuff.

Yep…best system ever.

At some point I will cover a good game. I promise.

Greg Sewart A/X-101, Absolute, Activision, David Crane, Micronet, Sega CD

Sega’s arcade heritage is something they never used to have a hard time capitalizing on. The Genesis enjoyed loads of home versions of arcade hits – Hang On, Outrun, Space Harrier, the Shinobi series, and of course, After Burner. But all the technical  trickery employed by the programmers to make those games run on the under-powered Genesis still didn’t keep them from severely lacking in the visuals department. That’s where the Sega CD came in.

In the first wave of Sega CD games (back when they came in cardboard boxes and standard-size jewel cases) was After Burner III. Imagine the excitement! No more of the stuttering, redrawn sprites the Genesis used for 3D motion. The Sega CD could do that stuff on the fly! This was going to be the greatest home version of After Burner ever made!

Or not.

A lot of the first run Sega CD games were nothing but gussied up Genesis cartridges featuring great, redbook audio soundtracks, and After Burner III was no different. This sluggish mess actually seems to perform a bit worse than some of the later Genesis renditions of Yu Suzuki’s classic arcade games.

And, if you want to get all technical, apparently it really isn’t even an After Burner game in the first place. Rather, it’s a Sega CD port of Strike Fighter, an arcade game released exclusively in Japan. Though any real fan of After Burner could probably tell there was something fishy going on back in the day.

There’s actually a lot to love about this game when you take a look at the feature list – a few different game modes, two different viewing options (though the full plane view obscures way too much of the screen), day and night missions, ground targets, unlimited missiles, and a pretty rockin’ soundtrack.

But none of those great features ever comes together to create anything…well, fun. You just slog along firing at wave after endless wave of enemies, with almost none of the excitement you could find in the first two After Burner games.

I think the most frustrating part of the whole deal is how the game seems to take almost no advantage of the hardware it’s on. While most people would normally point out that any early game on new hardware tends to steer clear of more advanced bells and whistles, the fact that the superb Batman Returns (one of the most impressive bits of Sega CD programmery ever) came out around the same time as After Burner really left me scratching my head at the whole thing.

So yeah…another triumph for the Sega CD. I swear I’ll get to some good games sometime in the near future.

Greg Sewart After Burner, Sega CD

Many apologies for how long it’s taken to release another installment of my impossibly poorly conceived look at the Sega CD’s library. But read on, and you’ll understand why this latest post is so delayed.

The Sega CD brought a lot of promise with it. Not only did it open up the possibility of full-motion video playback in our games (the future!), real voice acting, and the much-celebrated hardware scaling and rotation that was already featured in the SNES — fairly early on us console gamers were promised that we would finally get to experience a lot of those great adventure games that had, up until that point, lived solely on the personal computer.

Understand, this was a pretty big deal to me. We didn’t have a computer in my house while I was growing up. And while I got to experience a lot of the Sierra games on my friend’s crappy, amber monochrome monitor from time to time, all that really did was make me pine for a chance to play more of these types of games.

Willy Beamish was one of the first PC ports to hit the Sega CD. It’s the story of a young, Bart Simpson-esque citizen of Frumpton whose summer vacation is spent pursuing childish activities like frog jumping contests and practicing for a big video game competition. In the meantime, he fights vampire babysitters, tricks bullies out of beating him senseless, and takes down a criminal conspiracy by the owner of the Toot Sweet corporation. Just another lazy summer.

My nostalgia-fueled memories of playing through Willy Beamish back in the day convinced me that this was a wonderful game. It features colourful graphics, large characters, genuinely funny situations, and every bit of dialogue and narration is voiced. That was a pretty huge deal back in the day.

And as I readied to play the game again, I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I never finished the damn thing.

Now I do.

The Adventures of Willy Beamish on the Sega CD should be great, but it’s actually excruciating. The problem lies in all that great voice acting and high quality sound effects — every time a new sound or bit of dialoque plays, the entire game freezes for a few seconds while the system loads in the right file. It absolutely destroys the pacing of the game, not to mention extends the play time in the worst way possible.

During this playthrough, I got very close to the end before I just couldn’t take it anymore.

Thus far my trip down memory lane has been a bit of a bust. But hey, the Sega CD is still the greatest system ever made.

Greg Sewart Sega CD, Video Games Willy Beamish

In the long-awaited second installment of my journey through one of the greatest game libraries of all time, we take the Dark Knight’s second (!) Sega CD adventure for a spin.

First, some background. Batman Returns on the Sega CD is one of the greatest Batman games ever made. There. I said it. And this is due in no small part to the inclusion of some amazing Batmobile segments that really put the peripheral through its paces. They put the SNES’ sheet-of-paper Mode 7 effects to shame (unless you were an EGM editor back in the day…). Pure sex.

The followup is based on the awesome Warner Bros. cartoon featuring Batsy and his acrobatic sidekick. This would be cool enough on its own — after all, the SNES and Genesis games based on the cartoon were both great. But on top of that, it uses the same engine that powered those amazing Batman Returns driving segments. The lead programmer is even the same dude from Batman Returns. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything!

First of all, basing an entire Batman game around driving stages alone really doesn’t make for a lot of variety, though I will admit the developers tried to get a bit creative. The Riddler’s virtual reality level in particular is a nice change of pace.

The bigger problem, though, is the ridiculous difficulty right from the word go. You press start, and you’re immediately dropped into traffic that would put rush hour on the LA freeway to shame. And these aren’t cars you can shoot. They’re civilians…you have to avoid them at all costs. And there’s a very unforgiving time limit. So you have to drive fast, you can’t hit anything, and you’re not allowed to shoot anything? Sounds almost as awesome as it plays!

The Sega fanboy in me is desperately searching for something positive to say about this mess. Oh! The visuals are pretty darned impressive for a 16-bit game. Considering how fast everything is moving, and how many sprites are on-screen. Yeah! This is a great tech demo! Just never, ever pick up the controller and try to play it, and you  have one of the best Sega CD games ever made.

Actually, there is something very unique and kind of cool about this otherwise unplayable disc. It features around 25 minutes of completely original animation. So you could technically call this a lost episode of the Batman & Robin cartoon. And it features just about every villain, including the Joker as voiced by Mark Hamill himself. And thanks to the magic of the internets, every bit of that animation canbe found on Youtube.

So far my foray into the best the Sega CD has to offer has turned up two of the worst games on the system. But hey, there was a fair bit of crap on this system. And while I  can promise installment #3 will arrive a bit quicker than this one did, but I can’t promise the quality of game will get any better.

Greg Sewart Batman, Sega CD, Video Games

I love the Sega CD. And I love the 16-bit era in general. I’m not sure if that sentiment is purely based on nostalgia, or if it truly was one of the greatest gaming eras ever, but I’m gonna go with the latter for now.

Playing Ys Book I & II as our latest Game Club game has rekindled my passion for 16-bit CD games. And since I’ve spent way too much money and time collecting a bunch of Sega CD games, I’ve decided it’s time to actually, legitimately play them. And since CJ says I have to contribute to the show blog once in a while, I’ve decided to share my resulting thoughts with all of you.

Unfortunately, the first selection makes a greater case for nostalgia than it does for the 16-bit era being the great one.

Although they would go on to be the catalyst in Sega’s eventual exit from the console market, Sony provided pretty decent third-party support for the Sega CD throughout its lifetime with a mixture of movie-licensed platformers and full-motion-video titles.

The movie-licensed stuff usually ended up being nothing more than copies of their Genesis counterparts featuring redbook audio drawn right from the film’s score. To be fair, that didn’t always happen (Cliffhanger and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are good examples of that), but in the case of the abysmal 3 Ninjas Kick Back, I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what’s going on.

Why am I not completely sure? Well, two reasons – the game is so bad I can’t be bothered to see if the Genesis/SNES versions were identical to this one; and I honestly can’t get past the first group of levels. There’s a particular scene where a boulder is chasing me down a long slope (for no particular reason) that has vexed me for long enough that I just don’t care whether I see the rest of the game at this point.

EDIT: Actually, there was some content added to the game in the form of 3D hanglider missions, pictured here. That’s pretty much the same approach taken with Cliffhanger – they added 3D snowboarding missions to that one.

Well, I should point out that, on top of the “real” music, 3 Ninjas does feature a bit of video footage. Before certain levels, the old man I can only assume is your Sensei will pop up and explain what he wants you to do in that area. He’ll also appear during the continue screen in order to explain that you have to hit start to continue. This grainy, FMV crap is why I loved this system.

Otherwise, 3 Ninjas is a pretty standard action platformer with a horrible difficulty curve. It’s more or less identical to the style of play found in Sony Imagesoft’s other licensed platformers — especially Hook (another one that made the jump to the Sega CD — in fact it was sold in a two-pack with this very game).

Thank god I didn’t actually spend any money on this game back when the system was shiny and new. Years later, playing as a collector, I can simply shake my head at how bad it is and move on. Had I spent upwards of $100 on this junk back then, I can only imagine the depression that would have followed.

After all, our self-worth is measured by the relative success or failure of the games systems we own, right?

It seems this series has gotten off to a rather depressing start. Oh well. Up next: The Adventures of Batman & Robin!

Greg Sewart Miscellany, Sega CD, Video Games 3 Ninjas, bad game, Nostalgia, Sega CD