Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: sega mega drive

Aladdin (Sega Mega Drive)

Posted on by Viljami

Aladdin is a very good Sega Mega Drive game. It isn’t a long one but it surely is of a good quality. It only takes about two to three hours to complete. This is what we were actually used to back in the beginning of the 90s. So, I am writing this whole blog post about this game Aladdin.

As there have been some discussion about the release of Neo Geo console I have to make a brief comparison of these systems. Sega Mega Drive as a gaming console had a completely different strategy if compared to Neo Geo. The latter one seemed to invest in power and also had a higher price. Mega Drive was competing with Nintendo’s NES and was a whole lot cheaper gaming system. This also meant that the games weren’t as impressive graphically. This did also mean that Mega Drive was available to more consumers and was way more popular than Neo Geo.

Sega Mega Drive is also very important to me personally. I do have today maybe 40 games for this system. I do have also still every game that our family had when I was kid back in the 90s. I have kept them and haven’t sold any of them. I also have the console which is replaced in my gaming setup by Retro Trio since it you can play also SNES and NES, and also Master System and Game Boy games with the adapters I own, games. This way my setup doesn’t take so much space. I sometimes use real hardware and sometimes I play games with an emulator. I do buy games for Mega Drive at times and Aladdin is one these games that I have bought.

I remember buying Aladdin for a decent price. I think it was 40 or 60 euros. And this was already maybe two years ago. It might be difficult to try to find the actual physical copy of the game from a web shop. It is a bit of a rare game although it isn’t the rarest of all Mega Drive games. What really makes some games expensive is if they are good games and if there have been only a low amount of copies produced in the first place.

Aladdin as a video game gives everything that a Mega Drive game can give. The 2D graphics look beautiful on the system. The game is all about slight problem solving combined with platformer elements and some moments of action. The main character can jump and sling his sword at the enemy characters that usually take maybe three or four hits and then they disappear. There is a lot of jumping and path finding. The game play fits perfectly for Mega Drive’s original pad that only has three buttons along with the start button and the directional buttons.

I can definitely recommend Aladdin if you like games from this era. Playing this game is a must if you love Disney’s Mega Drive games. There was this certain appeal in these two-dimensional environments. The graphics look very nice. The game doesn’t last but only two to three hours as I already mentioned in this blog post.

Today is Saturday and it is also the time for schools to shut down for the summer vacation times here in Finland. I do remember when I was that young. It has been a long time. I also do have a summer vacation. It is for four weeks. In Finland it is common to have a long summer break be it that you were a student or an employee. I know that it is common in USA to take only a two weeks break at maximum per year. This is how different some things are if you compare USA and Finland. This is actually my 400th post to this blog!

Nostalgia With Mega Drive

Posted on by Viljami

I found a good way to feel some nostalgia with Mega Drive. I bought this game collection that has over 50 Mega Drive games. It cost me something around 20 to 30 euros. It is actually a “code-in-a-box” game this time. You can probably very easily tell if this collection is available as a digital copy. I don’t have a clue about that. I actually accidentally bought this version of this collection. Anyways this product is available also for other modern gaming devices. I have seen recently this available for Xbox Series X for 20 euros for a used and physical copy.

This seems to me like a bargain. I mean in the same package you get three Phantasy Star games, several Sonic titles and some games like Golden Axe and Streets of Rage not forgetting to mention a game like Kid Chameleon. There are so many good games in this collection. Even if you are just barely familiar with Mega Drive I can still recommend this collection for you.

If you think that you would buy each of these over 50 games separately I think many of us video game hobbyists would end up in bankruptcy. Phantasy Star II alone costs over 100 euros. The price tag for this collection would probably have four numerals. So, the point here is, they haven’t scant with this one a bit. These are definitely all good games. It would be hard to try to figure what game would be missing. Well, I did just come up with one game that’s missing and that game is Splatterhouse II. Splatterhouse III is also a good game and its not included in this collection.

The way I feel nostalgia while playing this game collections games is very clear. I did own a Mega Drive back in the first half of 1990s. Sonic The Hedgehog was the first game I played on this system. There is something so magical when I hear the music of this game. Take also for example the music of Streets of Rage II. What 16-bit game does have a better soundtrack? I think you are going to have hard time figuring that out.

What is so interesting about the audio side of the technology of Mega Drive gaming console seems to me the fact that it was actually a sound that was not CD quality. Sony achieved CD quality later but Mega Drive did this with its hardware and set the bar for Nintendo that also released a 16-bit console Super Nintendo. I think for a while Mega Drive was the leader when it comes to audio side of video games. We are talking about real history here. CD quality audio might seem as constant but you have to think hoe the technology was back then. Even PC didn’t have such a good audio quality back then. Of course Mega Drive gave some hard time for Nintendo that had to compete for several years with its 8-bit system NES.

I do recommend this Mega Drive collection for you. The price is very cheap. Also you get to see this cool virtual environment inside the menu of this collection. This is very cool feature. Some games, like for example, Phantasy Star II, that has already been mentioned in this blog post, might be games that you wouldn’t want to spend several tens of hours playing. These are retro games after all. I think if you totally hate retro games you have to consider if you really want to buy this. Modern games do have usually an overall better game design. This is because the industry has been developing several tens of years since we witnessed Mega Drive or anything like it.

 

Are We Lacking Excitement?

Posted on by Viljami

I barely remember the beginning of the 90s. No, I wasn’t partying hard back then. I mean that I was only a young child that didn’t have this ability to understand some things. I got the idea for this blog post as I was once again playing some Golden Axe 2 for Sega Mega Drive. It was first released in 1991.

I remember that this was one of the most popular games we had that time for Mega Drive. I definitely connect this game as a defnite Sega game. There are some games that just make me feel this way. We can mention games like Sonic and Outrun. This can tell you only how skillful these engineers and game designers were. They were not playing with their technical skills.

If we think about technology we can think about 1980s and how Commodore 64 influenced several young people to commit a huge amount of time to programming and getting into this technical field as a hobby. Some might have even made it to the industry as a professional. I can think of people like Linus Torvalds right here. Did you know that he is also from Finland? Well, he is.

While users of Mega Drive gaming system weren’t able to program or design their own games with this device there definitely was some sense of excitement towards technology, computers, games and everything else related to video games.

If you play Golden Axe 2 for a while you can notice how thoroughly the makers of this game have thought about many aspects about this game. First of all we have here some very carefully designed characters. We also have these surroundings that can make your imagination take a dive in to the wolrd this game presents. There is also a light story among with some enemy characters. All this just explains the quality of this work. This is defnitely a good game of this era.

The gameplay is very nice also. Graphics could be better. It’s a shame that we haven’t seen a new Golden Axe game for a while now. There was a game released for PS3 and/or Xbox 360 some time ago. But I think that this game looks good if you think about it being released back in 1991.

What would I add to this game if I had a change to modernize it? It lacks some character development in my opinion. I could see this game being a very nice action RPG if it would be brought to this day. If there would be experience points and some way just to develop your character. The story and surroundings are just so detailed. This game has taken some influences about some phantasy literacy and maybe even movies. So it would be a good fit for a role playing game.

Mega Drive had a deep impact to game development. Did you know that Diablo was inspired by NHL 94? Well, it was. Turn based role playing games were dominating the markets before Diablo was released. The developers at Blizzard thought that they should bring these action features to the world of role playing games. At the same time real time strategy games were beginning to become more popular.

But we should return to the main question that I set in the beginning of this blog post. Were things different back in 1991? And if so how? The biggest change there has happened is that video games are a way bigger business today. Do we have enough room here to create something unforgetable? Are we still excited about new technology and with the same time about building new phantasy stories, worlds and characters?

I think we haven’t lost all of our excitement. But if we wish to progress in this world of gaming we have to keep this matter in our minds. Money is important, I know that. But it shouldn’t take away these opportunities and all this excitement. So let me say, once again, don’t loose your dreams! Don’t loose the excitement…