• Tag Archives Sega

  • Fatal Fury Special (Sega CD)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    https://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/662817718636101632/oldgamemags-diehard-gamefan-april-1995

    Fatal Fury Special is a 2D fighting game that was released for both the home and arcade versions of the Neo Geo hardware in 1993. The original Fatal Fury was perhaps the earliest competitor to Street Fighter II though it was actually developed at the same time by the original creator of the first Street Fighter game. Fatal Fury Special was the third game in the series though not really a true sequel.

    To make an analogy, Fatal Fury Special is to Fatal Fury 2 what Street Fighter II Turbo is to Street Fighter II. It’s an enhancement more than a sequel. There are also parallels in the sense that one of the changes made to Fatal Fury Special was to speed up the game play. In addition to speeding up the game play, Fatal Fury Special tweaked the play mechanics allowing combo attacks among other things. Also, the characters that were only computer controlled in Fatal Fury 2 could now be selectable by the player.

    Fatal Fury 2 was well received by both players and critics and was quite popular. In addition to the original Neo Geo versions, it was also ported to a variety of other systems including the Super Nintendo, Sega CD (a review of which appears at the top of this post), Game Gear and PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. These ports received more mixed reviews but were generally positive. The main criticisms typically had to do with graphics and sound compromises that had to be made on less powerful hardware. At the time, Neo Geo hardware was certainly expensive but nothing else gave you true arcade power in your home.

    There would continue to be Fatal Fury games released throughout the rest of the decade for the Neo Geo. In addition, the inclusion of a hidden character from Art of Fighting in Fatal Fury Special was the inspiration for the King of Fighters game series. Most fans of 2D fighting games are probably already well familiar with the Neo Geo and the various fighting games available for it. If not, then this game, along with most of the other Fatal Fury games, are definitely ones you should try. While other ports are ok, you probably want to stick to the Neo Geo version or an emulation of it (there was one available via Xbox Live Arcade for example).

    Screen shots above are from the Sega CD version of the game.


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  • Electronic Gaming Monthly (September 1998)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Electronic Gaming Monthly – September 1998

    Electronic Gaming Monthly was one of the most successful gaming magazines and one of my favorites. I never subscribed but did buy issues frequently and bought pretty much every issue in a span between 1990 and 1993. By 1998 I was rarely buying an issue. I’m not sure why really but I guess like everybody else, I was starting to get more content online. Contents from the September 1998 issue (the 110th issue!) include:

    Features

    • Metal Gear Solid – Nothing had been seen from the Metal Gear franchise for the better part of a decade. In fact, it couldn’t really be called a franchise at that point. But it was back in a big way on the PlayStation in 3D glory so of course EGM had a story on it.
    • Hurry Up and Die So I Can Play – This is an article on female game designers and sound engineers. Why sound engineers specifically vs. graphic artists or other game designers? I have no idea. Anyway, this article goes into how female game designers and sound engineers feel about current (at the time) female characters in gaming.
    • Pocket Cameron – This is an article about the Game Boy Camera and making your own ‘blockbuster’ (Pocket Cameron, James Cameron, get it? Hahaha…heh.) Though the article goes over how to use the camera it is a bit tongue-in-cheek. After all, it can’t even really record video, just black and white images. Though you can make some simple animations by using a series of photos. As a side note, at the time the Game Boy Camera was in the Guiness Book of World Record as the world’s smallest digital camera.

    Departments

    • Editorial – This editorial is about making gaming a little more grown-up instead of something targeted at adolescent males.
    • Letters – The Letter of the Month talks about how Sony made the PlayStation a success with their marketing despite it being technically inferior to the Nintendo 64. It foreshadows the failure of the Dreamcast with a warning to heed the lessons of the PlayStation vs. the Saturn.
    • Press Start – EGM’s news section. The feature story was about violence in video games and Florida’s latest attempt at censorship (which fortunately failed).
    • Gaming Gossip – A regular column featuring rumors and gossip in the gaming industry. This month the Dreamcast, Game Boy Color games, and Saturn’s Virtua Fighter 3 were the topics.
    • Review Crew – EGM’s regular reviews section. Pocket Fighter, Banjo Kazooie and Shining Force III were the featured games though there were many other reviews.
    • Previews – EGM’s regular previews section. It is similar to the reviews section except it looks at unfinished games with an uncritical eye. For the Nintendo 64, Twisted Edge SnowBoarding, Bomberman Hero, Madden NFL 99 and Wipeout 64 were looked at among others. For the PlayStation Bust-a-Groove, Parasite Eve, Tenchu, Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, and Colony Wars: Vengeance were featured. For the Saturn, Castlevania was the featured preview. There were arcade previews too (big name arcade game were still being made in 1998) including Street Fighter Alpha III, Daytona 2, Soul Calibur and Gauntlet Legends.
    • Jump Start – This is what EGM was calling their strategy section. This month’s featured strategy was on Vigilante 8.
    • Trick of the Trade – EGM’s tips and tricks column featuring X-Men vs. Street Fighter on the PlayStation.
    • Get Some! – This was a column dedicated to new gadgets and media. This month it looked at The Buz video capture device by Iomega, a book of Photomosaics, Space Ghost: The Musical, and Sony’s new TRV64 Hi-8 camcorder.
    • The Final Word – A sort of second editorial to wrap up the magazine. This one is a rant about the deficiencies of modern controllers, focusing on the Dreamcast and Nintendo 64.

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  • Sega’s Upgradable Hardware Systems

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Computer & Video Game Magazines – Sonic Times – April 1995


    Above is an ad from Sonic Times. Sonic Times was a promotional newsletter sent to Sega retailers during the Genesis era. It contained information like marketing schedules, lists of top games sold and upcoming releases. This ad highlights the upgradability of the Sega Genesis.

    It’s true that the Genesis had a few different upgrade paths. The basic Sega Genesis could play 99% or more of all the games released for that system. However, the Sega CD add-on added the ability to play CD games. Unfortunately, relatively few games were made for CD and even fewer were very good. Sega also released the 32X which plugged into the cartridge port and acted as a pass through. It added some 32-bit hardware to the Genesis enabling better graphics and theoretically better games. However, once again, few games supported it and fewer were particularly good. In many cases games released for the 32X or Sega CD appeared as regular cartridges without significant loss of quality.

    Some games even required both the 32X and the Sega CD but as you could probably guess, those games were even fewer in number. It’s not so much that the hardware was bad, it’s just that it was not well supported by third parties and Sega themselves just couldn’t provide enough software to really justify their purchase price. There were certainly a few good games to be had for these expansions just not generally enough to make their cost worthwhile.

    Pictured above is a fully expanded Genesis with the newer model Sega CD and 32X. What’s not shown is the mess of cables and power supplies needed.

    Sega’s strategy to hardware expansion was quite different than Nintendo’s. What Nintendo hardware expansions you might ask? Well, they certainly weren’t as visible. A CD system was long planned for the Super Nintendo but it never materialized. There were also disk systems for both the NES and N64 that appeared in Japan but never elsewhere. However, Nintendo and other 3rd parties did a lot of hardware expansion in the cartridges themselves. A variety of “memory mappers” appeared in NES cartridges that added more RAM and other hardware. For the Super Nintendo, the Super FX chip is probably the most well known expansion though it was only used in a couple of games. This sort of hardware expansion in the software made for more expensive games but they weren’t THAT much more expensive and easier to swallow a small piece at a time than shelling out for an expensive Sega CD or 32X (or both). Of course, Nintendo screwing over Sony in their partnership to create a CD expansion for the SNES is what led to the PlayStation but that is another story.

    Hardware expansion happened in other systems as well. A couple of games for the Atari 7800 added a Pokey sound chip (from the Atari 8-bit computer line) to enhance the sound. The Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn had memory expansions and of course in more modern systems external storage can often be added or upgraded. However, I think Sega had everyone beat with the amount and extent of upgrade options with the Genesis. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough neat software to go with all the neat hardware.


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