THE RANT: Who can forget that slogan? I can't. I hear it in my sleep. The first killer app to come out on this machine was Strider, which was pretty close to the arcade (a lot more so than the crappy NES version.) It also seemed to be a selling point that Strider had 8 megs. Back then that was a big deal. I never had one of these either but my friend Doug did. He was one of those guys who always had to have the best thing out there so when this came out he returned the TG-16 and got a Genesis. I remember being very impressed with the voice and graphics on Revenge of Shinobi, yet I really thought the translation of Altered Beast sucked ass. Still, it was a lot cooler than my NES at the time, although I thought the Genesis software seemed a little shallow. Most of the games seemed to be shooters or cheeseball arcade translations. Sega must have realized this because when Sonic the Hedgehog came out they pushed it like crazy. It helped their sales to finally have a mascot that could compete with Mario, in a halfway decent game to boot. Of course then it seemed like everyone had to have their own furry animal mascot, and a ton of stupid ass games like Bubsy, Aero the acrobat, Slippy the fucking snail, etc all followed within a few years. As time went on the Genesis' shortcomings in the graphics and sound dept. became more and more apparent. I think the turning point in the 16 bit wars was Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II, the SNES versions kick ass while the Genesis versions have substandard graphics and sound. Of course then every company that made a stupid mascot game had to make a gory fighting game as well...
Anyway Sega tried to do a lot with this system, like releasing the Sega CD and 32x, but nobody cared about those. Seems like those type of add-ons never really caught on with any system. Because of the multitude of add-ons and Sega's hype about the Saturn console that ended up getting pushed back a year the company got a reputation for vaporware. Add to the fact that every year Sega seemed to release a new version of the Genesis and you're back with the old "competing with yourself" problem. Automobile companies may be able to make different models of a product and make money but not game companies. I think this was the beginning of the end for Sega, as the customers who continuously shelled out the bucks for products that were no longer supported after a year got fed up with it and decided to wait for a Playstation or N64 instead. Today Sega is a shadow of their former selves. They now make games for Nintendo, their one time great rival. I finally decided to buy a Genesis about three years ago when I found one at the Goodwill for $25.
THE GOOD: Has like over 1000 games, and most of them are pretty good. After the first generation the games really start to shine, with Ghouls and Ghosts, Strider, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Vectorman, Hertzog Zewi, and Space Harrier being my personal favorites. Has a ton of add-ons, controllers, and accessories, like the X-band modem, various game enhancement devices, etc. You can also buy a Master System converter and play Master system games on your Genesis. Genesis crap is cheap as hell and really plentiful to boot.
THE BAD: Most of the first Generation software sucks, but I suppose that's the way it is with all consoles. After the first few games the programmers really get to know what the system is made of and they tend to get better. But here is seems like a lot of the first generation games were rushed, like lackluster translations of Altered beast, S.W.A.T., Mercs, Moonwalker, etc. Six button fighting games are impossible to play with a three button controller. Don't even try. Also seems like some of the systems I come across take some kind of special AV cable, like the standard one you get at Radio Shack won't fit. That crapola pisses me off! If you make a video game system, make it work with a normal AV cable! I finally found one that used normal cables and it works fine (it was a newer model,) so I don't know if that was just like only the older systems took a special cable or what. I could find out but I'm too lazy to research it. So sue me.
THE UGLY: A Genesis with a Sega CD, 32x, and Master System converter all attached together. It's an accident waiting to happen.
Reasons to own a Genesis:
- You can find a billion games for it, and nowadays most of them can be found complete for less than $5
-Some truley awsome shooters like Thunderforce III
-Genesis exclusive games in established franchises like Castlevania: Bloodlines are must haves.
Reasons not to own a Genesis:
-Genesis has not aged well in the graphics and sounds department, a lot of the games tend to look crappier than their SNES counterparts
-You'll have to sort through 10 crappy games to get a good one
-You don't have a lot of space to tower up fiften different add-ons that only play a handful of games
Lightgun for the Genesis. Came with a 6-in-1 game cart.
