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Taito apparently loved the Genesis, publishing a multitude of arcade ports that were highly playable, despite being toned down (downright cut up in some cases). There were quite a few games that never made the transition to the home market, but most of the company’s arcade catalogue of the time got a Genesis release. Cadash was one title that saw some questionable changes in its port (I understand only having two-player co-op, but why remove characters?) yet still remained enjoyable.
Halloween’s almost here, but that doesn’t mean the ol’ Genesis gets neglected! Holiday or not, there’s always some great gaming going on around here, and this month features a nice spread of titles. Our readers share their gaming experiences in the October installment of our popular Reader Roundtable series. Miss it not!
During the early days of the Genesis, Sega quietly released ports of two Electronic Arts PC simulations, M-1 Abrams Battle Tank and 688 Attack Sub. It was an attempt to diversify the console’s library, and it was successful, to some extent. The Genesis was able to reproduce faithful versions of the pair, which had been released on much more powerful computers, but there were still some issue to be had.
There are quite a number of a industry personalities today that have a tenure at Sega somewhere on their résumé. Many designers, artists, and programmers either got their starts at the fabled company or made a stop there sometime on the road to success. David Foley is a great example of the latter. Working at Sega as both a designer and programmer, he took part in many famous projects, including Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin and Chakan. He also played a major part in bringing the Sega Channel to thousands of happy homes across America. Ultimately, Foley moved on to found several companies and enjoy the fruits of his efforts as an entrepreneur.
Toaplan gets credit for being one of the pioneers of the Danmaku style of shooter, what we westerners know as the “bullet hell” shmup, and games like Donpachi and Mars Matrix are great examples of this fast paced and ultra twitch style of play. What’s interesting is that it got its roots in a Toaplan game that was eventually ported to the Genesis. Grind Stormer was the first game done by Ikeda Tsunemoto, who eventually went on to work at another shmup haven, Cave. Tengen handled the porting job, and sadly the game suffered in the transition. Flickering graphics hindered what could have been a great game, and our full review has the whole story.
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