• Tag Archives Sega Genesis

  • General Chaos (Sega Genesis)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    General Chaos was released by Electronic Arts for the Sega Genesis in 1993. While it never seemed to gain much traction, it was really a game ahead of its time. It is basically a squad based real-time strategy game. Warcraft, the game that really popularized the real-time strategy genre in general, wasn’t released until the following year.

    Of course, other than a real-time strategy component, there isn’t much that is similar to Warcraft here. General Chaos is squad based. Players can choose from one of four five man squads with various types of units or a more powerful two man commando team. Unit types include Machine Gunner, Launcher, Flamethrower, Chucker, and Blaster. The different squad choices have different combinations of these units.

    General Chaos is played from an isometric perspective. One other aspect of this game that will be familiar to real-time strategy players is the control mechanism. Basically, you select a unit and assign an order and the AI will execute it. Individual battles are generally pretty short but the game can be played in campaign mode which is basically a series of battles (between General Chaos and General Havok) with the ultimate objective of capturing the enemy’s capital city. In addition to the real-time strategy aspect, there are a few other things that make this game stand out as unique.

    One of the most prominent aspects of this game is its humor. Sure, you can order your units around but they aren’t always competent. Adding to the humor is the cartoonish nature of the graphics. In some ways, the humor of the game reminds me of another humorous strategy game that is one of my all time favorites…Worms.

    Another fairly unique feature, especially for the Genesis at the time, was that you could play (with an appropriate adapter) with up to four players. Everybody can team up against the computer or you can play as more of a free for all. As you could imagine, having four players adds significantly to the chaos…and the fun.

    General Chaos generally got excellent reviews. However, I don’t recall it being all that popular. It doesn’t appear to be particularly rare though as an original copy can be found for reasonable prices on eBay. This game is, however, exclusive to the Sega Genesis. The only way to play is to track down an original or use emulation. There has never been a sequel. There was a Kickstarter campaign in 2014 to create a sequel but it was unsuccessful, falling way short of its goal.

    I definitely recommend this game if you are a real-time strategy fan or of humorous games in general. Just don’t expect anything serious here. Yes, it is a strategy game but the goal here is to entertain, not to simulate serious warfare. In that, it does an excellent job.

    The three page magazine ad above is from the October 1993 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly.


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  • Tiny Toon Adventures: ACME All-Stars (Sega Genesis)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Tiny Toon Adventures: ACME All-Stars is a multi-sport title released on the Sega Genesis that featured characters from the Tiny Toon Adventures animated series. This game was released by Konami in late 1994. The sports featured include basketball, soccer, bowling, baseball, and an obstacle course race as well as a whack-a-mole style game called “Montana Hitting”. While there was a similar game for the Super NES, it featured a different set of sports.

    As you can probably imagine, these sports were more like mini-games, not full sports simulations. For instance, the basketball game was a two-on-two match-up. Soccer features a five-vs-five match-up. Each sport features both the basic moves you would expect along with special moves. Whichever sports you choose, you get to select the players from a roster of characters from the show including the likes of Buster Bunny, Babs Bunny, Plucky Duck, etc. There were a dozen characters to select from. Each character had different characteristics making them better for some sports than for others.

    As far as difficulty level, it really depends on the sport. Some are pretty simple (like bowling) while others require more precise control to be able to do well (like baseball). Your computer component gives uneven performances, sometimes being too hard and sometimes not hard enough. However, most are fairly fun as long as you aren’t expecting a realistic sports simulation experience. There is also a nice multiplayer feature. Not only can you play against another player but you can also play co-op against the computer. This feature more than anything else gives it some serious replayability.

    ACME All-Stars also makes great use of the 16-bit graphics of the Genesis. It really looks like you are playing the cartoon. There is tons of detail and lots of references and gags that are throwbacks to the show. There is also plenty of humor injected with interactions between the characters. The sound and music, while perhaps doesn’t stand out as much as the graphics, fits right in with the cartoony nature of the game.


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  • The Lion King (Sega Genesis)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    https://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/721373588036435968/segacity-elephant-graveyard-the-lion-king

    The Lion King is a 2D side-scrolling platform game based on the Disney movie of the same name that was released for various systems starting in 1994. The Super NES and Sega Genesis versions were the first versions released and are probably the best. This game was also ported to the Game Gear, NES, Sega Master System, Amiga, DOS and the Game Boy. I’m focusing on the Genesis version here but at least this version and the Super NES version were very similar.

    The game features ten levels that loosely follows the plot of the movie. Each level generally represents some key point in the movie. Players start off playing as young Simba who gets older throughout the game. Simba journeys through various stages such as the Pride Lands, Elephant Graveyard, Hakuna Matata, and others. The gameplay involves what you would generally expect in this type of game including puzzle-solving, combat with enemies (including hyenas), etc.

    Graphics and sound were excellent in this game. By this point, they had basically perfected 16-bit graphics and sound. Disney animators drawing the sprites and backgrounds probably helped. They do an excellent job of capturing the atmosphere of the movie with both the graphics and the sound. The animation is fluid, graphics colorful and the soundtrack is basically an adaptation of the soundtrack from the movie and is very well done.

    Controls feature running and jumping of course and Simba’s main “weapon” is a roar that stuns enemies. Throughout the game, as Simba gets older, he acquires new and more powerful abilities such as a stronger roar and the ability to pounce. As with many platform games of this era, each level ends with a boss battle. The final boss battle features Scar.

    Gameplay is fairly balanced. It’s challenging enough to keep your interest but no so hard as to be frustrating (at least not too often anyway). It does get significantly harder as you progress through the game though so it isn’t necessarily for novice players. Younger kids could get frustrated with this game after a few levels and you would think that would be the target market here. On the other hand, they aren’t going to beat it in a day and there is a fair amount of replay value as there are plenty of secrets to uncover.

    In general, if you like Disney and or/platform games, then this is definitely one to have on your list. While licensed games are often terrible, Disney managed to do an excellent job in this era getting high quality games made. Of course, they were putting out some pretty good animated movies then as well. As to whether you play the Super NES version or The Genesis version probably comes down to personal system preference. You can find the original games on eBay of course or choose to emulate if you want. I don’t think this game has ever had a re-release and I doubt that it will. The other versions listed above are interesting to try as well but if you want to play the best version of the game, stick with one of these two 16-bit consoles.


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