Though I didn’t get to play one until the very early 90s I can still remember the tv adverts in the UK for the SMS from kindergarten in the 80s. I have a clear memory of my friends and I around a table all chanting ‘Do me a favour, plug me into a SEGA!’ (though I doubt any of us knew what a SEGA was.)
I got to play a handful of SMS games through the converter for the Game Gear and later the converter on Mega Drive (I was lucky enough to give the mark 2 converter for the Mega Drive 2, so no card games for me!)
I bought this in 2006 for £3 and whenever I tried to sit down and play it through I just lost interest. However, after listening to the relevant episode of the podcast ‘The GameCube was cool’ I decided to finally complete it and did so last month.
It’s a very nice looking game but does feel unfinished. The flying levels are good but too few and seemingly tacked on. The animation and graphics are great and the world is fun to explore. However, although everything works fine it just feels unfinished. For example, Fox can actually vary his attacks with a tilt of the stick, but none is more powerful or effective than just mashing A. Compare this to Zelda, where the is a point to Link’s different attacks (chops, jabs, slashed or jumping attacks) that can get past different defences and due more damage. It’s little things like that that I found disappointing; it was clearly planned but never implemented. Btw, was the voice acting localised? In the PAL version the star Fox team all have American accents but the dinosaurs all have regional British accents. I found it funny, coming from the UK, as I’m sure to the Americans playing it the dinosaurs all sounded quite unusual, but hearing a mammoth with a Scottish accent or a stegosaurus that sounds like a farmer was quite amusing!
I remember the game from the N64 box and I got a copy with my OG Gameboy. Last year someone had given away a load of N64 games, complete in boxes at my local charity store. Smash Bros. was too steep at £50 but I did but Killer Instinct complete in box for £15 which seemed fair for a charity donation. Good, silly beat em up, but I’m as bad at them now as when I played Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition on the Mega Drive when I was 12 😂
I was a school kid during the Classic Console Wars, but growing up in the north of England at the time it was a one horse race: the NES has been and gone and the Mega Drive ruled supreme. I knew maybe one or two people with a SNES but Nintendo were pretty much known for the GameBoy and as such we’re not really in competition (although I had a Game Gear I always wanted to play my sister’s GameBoy as the batteries lasted for ever!). Having talked to other people my age it really was SEGA vs Amiga in the early 90s. I remember playing both Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart in shops and not being particularly interested. Sonic was far more impressive at the time for speed and graphics and racers like Road Rash were what we were playing. In the UK Nintendo were not particularly established (which is probably hard to grasp if you’re from the states; microcomputers were all the rage here in the 80s) so I guess there was less of a thrill at going from 8 bit NES to 16 bit SNES. Most of us went from Sinclair Spectrums or Commadore 64s, so regardless of whether you feel the SNES was better than the Mega Drive, you should at least appreciate how impressive SEGA’s machine was to a 8-10 year old at the time! Don’t get me wrong; I grew to love Nintendo, but of all the systems the SNES is the one I gave the least connection to (we picked a side and stick with it in those days. 25 years on and I’m still Mega Drive kid!)
I remember those pirate tv ads well and the comic series in Sonic the Comic.
Hopefully I’ll be getting the Mega Drive Mini soon. Can’t wait to have it next to my SNES mini. The circle will be complete...
Comments 104
Re: Sega Master System Celebrates 35th Anniversary In The UK
Though I didn’t get to play one until the very early 90s I can still remember the tv adverts in the UK for the SMS from kindergarten in the 80s. I have a clear memory of my friends and I around a table all chanting ‘Do me a favour, plug me into a SEGA!’ (though I doubt any of us knew what a SEGA was.)
I got to play a handful of SMS games through the converter for the Game Gear and later the converter on Mega Drive (I was lucky enough to give the mark 2 converter for the Mega Drive 2, so no card games for me!)
Re: Feature: The Making Of Star Fox Adventures, The Game That Was Once Dinosaur Planet
I bought this in 2006 for £3 and whenever I tried to sit down and play it through I just lost interest. However, after listening to the relevant episode of the podcast ‘The GameCube was cool’ I decided to finally complete it and did so last month.
It’s a very nice looking game but does feel unfinished. The flying levels are good but too few and seemingly tacked on. The animation and graphics are great and the world is fun to explore. However, although everything works fine it just feels unfinished. For example, Fox can actually vary his attacks with a tilt of the stick, but none is more powerful or effective than just mashing A. Compare this to Zelda, where the is a point to Link’s different attacks (chops, jabs, slashed or jumping attacks) that can get past different defences and due more damage. It’s little things like that that I found disappointing; it was clearly planned but never implemented. Btw, was the voice acting localised? In the PAL version the star Fox team all have American accents but the dinosaurs all have regional British accents. I found it funny, coming from the UK, as I’m sure to the Americans playing it the dinosaurs all sounded quite unusual, but hearing a mammoth with a Scottish accent or a stegosaurus that sounds like a farmer was quite amusing!
Re: Feature: 25 Years Ago, Nintendo Took On The Might Of Street Fighter With Killer Instinct
I remember the game from the N64 box and I got a copy with my OG Gameboy. Last year someone had given away a load of N64 games, complete in boxes at my local charity store. Smash Bros. was too steep at £50 but I did but Killer Instinct complete in box for £15 which seemed fair for a charity donation. Good, silly beat em up, but I’m as bad at them now as when I played Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition on the Mega Drive when I was 12 😂
Re: Feature: How Pirate Television Helped Sega Beat Nintendo In The UK
I was a school kid during the Classic Console Wars, but growing up in the north of England at the time it was a one horse race: the NES has been and gone and the Mega Drive ruled supreme. I knew maybe one or two people with a SNES but Nintendo were pretty much known for the GameBoy and as such we’re not really in competition (although I had a Game Gear I always wanted to play my sister’s GameBoy as the batteries lasted for ever!). Having talked to other people my age it really was SEGA vs Amiga in the early 90s. I remember playing both Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart in shops and not being particularly interested. Sonic was far more impressive at the time for speed and graphics and racers like Road Rash were what we were playing. In the UK Nintendo were not particularly established (which is probably hard to grasp if you’re from the states; microcomputers were all the rage here in the 80s) so I guess there was less of a thrill at going from 8 bit NES to 16 bit SNES. Most of us went from Sinclair Spectrums or Commadore 64s, so regardless of whether you feel the SNES was better than the Mega Drive, you should at least appreciate how impressive SEGA’s machine was to a 8-10 year old at the time! Don’t get me wrong; I grew to love Nintendo, but of all the systems the SNES is the one I gave the least connection to (we picked a side and stick with it in those days. 25 years on and I’m still Mega Drive kid!)
I remember those pirate tv ads well and the comic series in Sonic the Comic.
Hopefully I’ll be getting the Mega Drive Mini soon. Can’t wait to have it next to my SNES mini. The circle will be complete...