[ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Sega Mating Game
November 3rd, 2008 by Benj Edwards
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Sega created some pretty edgy advertising in the mid-1990s, so it came as no surprise when they used a risqué visual metaphor to introduce their new 32X add-on for the Genesis. Sadly, the only fruit this unholy union bore was Sega’s eventual failure in the hardware market.
Discussion topic of the week: It’s a tough call: are there any decent games for the 32x?
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November 3rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Virtua Racing Deluxe is quite good. That’s about it for me.
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
DarXide, a phenomenal space shooter (read: Descent in space) with an awesome soundtrack by (IMO) the single greatest VGM composer ever, Richard Jacques. Unfortunately you have to have all PAL-gear to play it, I’ve heard it’s one of the LEAST import-friendly games ever.
There’s that other one though, umm.. Stellar Squadron I think. It’s not as good, but it’s far from crap.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Honestly? I never used the 32x, and only recently got a Genesis, so I would have no idea.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Steven Kent, in his book The Ultimate History of Video Games, says that Star Wars- The Arcade basically showed how worthless the system was. But I actually liked that game. The ports of Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing were pretty impressive, too. And for some reason, I even liked Metal Head. That last game reminds me of a Dreamcast mecha game I played, the name of which slips my mind right niow.
November 4th, 2008 at 7:46 am
I liked Knuckles’ Chaotix, which seems to get a lot of negativity for being a Sonic title while having such weird gameplay.
However, there’s no arguing that the Space Harrier port is completely amazing. It’s arcade-perfect, really.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:56 am
OH CRAP, you’re right, Knuckles’ Chaotix and Space Harrier are REALLY REALLY good. And KC isn’t a Sonic title IMO, it’s a Knuckles title. :3
November 4th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I’d really like to have the 32X to round out my collection.
But at the price they’re going, especially with the number of games available, it just isn’t worth it…
November 4th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
At least in the game collecting circles I hang around in, the 32X costs barely anything. Same with games. (Almost any 32X item, excluding rare games, I can get for $10) The only reason I don’t actually own one is that I’ve put other stuff ahead of it in terms of priority. And maybe because my Genesis’s current location doesn’t have enough vertical room for the silly ol’ mushroom.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Adding a vote for Space harrier and knukle chaotix here. These are IMO the best games for the 32X.
Sadly this console didn’t deserve to die so early, the 32X did vastly improve the megadrive graphic capabilities, not only in terms of 3D (to be honest I’m not a fan of the early 3D like in the virtua games) but also in terms of sprites.
from my understanding it used some sort of 2d-in-3D system wich let programmers use hundreds of colours for the sprite (unlike the megadrive 61 colors) and hardware rotation/scaling.
Knuckle is a good example, Kolibri also (but this game was kind of lame).
November 6th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
The game i remember most was Doom. That was the biggest selling point for me! At the time, when i bought the 32x, there was only 4 games for it. Doom was one of them and star wars (dont remember the full title) I really didnt care for the star wars one. The game play seemed “clunky” for a lack of a better word. In fact i think right after Doom the rateing system came out, however, the more i think about that one i think it was mortal kombat that might have pushed that more into play.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Ah, the old 32X…I absolutely loved Chaotix, as it was quite a departure from the traditional Sonic formula. Cool characters in that one, too, though I fear the tradition of adding more and more and more useless characters into Sonic games may have started with Chaotix. Space Harrier and Doom were excellent as well.
Of course, this was all dependent on me being able to actually get the thing to work. I remember having incredible difficulty linking the 32X and my old original model Genesis.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Space Harrier and Chaotix have already been mentioned, so I’ll just add Kolibiri and Blackthorne (much better than the SNES version, IMHO)
November 16th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Good article, one nitpick though:
“Sure, it looked and felt like Double Dragon….” (Streets of Rage)
SoR is very (and I do mean VERY) heavily inspired by Capcom’s Final Fight from 1989, even down to the enemy sprites and weapon types available.
Sega had a habit of cloning popular arcade games for their home systems back then, just take a look at Double Hawk (Cabal) for the Master System, or Bomber Raid (1942/1943) also for the Master System.
Usually they added new features, like SoR’s artillery barrage, so it wouldn’t play exactly the game they were copying.
November 16th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Argh! My previous comment was supposed to be in your “20 Years of Sega Genesis” article, I don’t know why i posted it here 😛
November 16th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Feel free to repost it, Torpedo. By the way, I didn’t write that part of the Genesis article anyway. See the note at the bottom of my post on it.