Over at DbT, we're now entering the top 10 for the best adventure games of all time. Today's offering stars everyone's favorite whip-wielding, snake-fearing, fortune and glory seeker.
Release Date: 1993
Platform: Sega Genesis
Developer: Mutant Productions
I never owned any Sega system and I'm sure I've missed out on many great games. However, I did rent a Genesis a few times and Mutant League Football was one of the games we frequented. It's a silly little game, where one can often win the game by killing or dismembering so many of your opponents they can no longer field a team. You can bribe officials, plant mines, and various other evil things that have little to do with football. In other words, a good idea!
I honestly don't know if I can recommend it because it's been years, but if you do boot it up, you'll hopefully laugh a few times. What I want to know is what other Sega games, for the Master System or the Genesis, did I miss and should feel bad about? My best friend talks up the Phantasy Star series of RPGs. I hear the sports games tend to be better than their SNES counterparts. And yes, I've played Sonic. What else should I look at?
And, of course, whatcha playin' these days?
I pretty much only played sports games on my Genesis and, yes, they were way better than the games on my friend's SNES. I can't really think of any non-sports games besides Sonic that I played.
Ah, Mutant League Football. Good times. It feels like a franchise that would work well with a reboot, but they'd probably do something stupid like making it dark and gritty (Bomberman, anyone?).
I played an episode a night of The Walking Dead a week ago. My word, that is an experience. The game mechanics themselves are merely decent. The gameplay would probably 6 or 7 of 10 (my scale, not the "anything less then 8 is crap" scale that most gaming magazines seem to use - games that got a 7.5 got on my Top 50 list last year). If the game's writing was on par with the television series, we wouldn't be talking about it. As it stands, I don't think I've ever played a more affecting, resonant game. The writing is great, the choices are sadistic, and the little girl who you're put in charge of gives you something to actually connect to. It would've been easy to make Lee just another dude killing zombies in a no-win situation. Telltale knocked it out of the park.
Next up is probably Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.
I'm with you on not actually wanting a reboot. I vaguely remember there being a cartoon series that nearly ruined my memories of the game, so I'd like to not have to forget about anything else surrounding it. I played it a ton back in the day, plus me and a college roomate used to play it a lot on an emulator. His (admittedly very effective, to the point of being unfair) strategy was to kill as many of my players as possible until I couldn't go on while I'm over here playing actual football.
I really want to play The Walking Dead because I've heard so much about it and I've been so disappointed in the tv series through two seasons. (I laughed out loud at Sarah Wayne Callies facial expressions during Rick's confession. Season 3 gets better, right? Right?)
Season three gets better. It's still not perfect, but the episode they aired on Sunday was probably the best written episode since the pilot.
If you like the idea of the show, and just wish you cared a bit more about the characters, the game will score big.
That's what I've heard, so I remain hopeful. I'm also reading through the graphic novels as well, so something like the game should be something I would want to pursue. I've herad the mobile version has a ton of problems, though, which is a bummer because playing it on my iPod would be perfect for when I'm traveling.
The Walking Dead is a top five gaming experience for my entire life. I straight up bawled at one point and got close a few other times. Just sat there beside myself and bawled.
This month I didn't really start any new games, just finished up with my most recent playthrough of Borderlands 2. Unfortunately, as I took the disc out of the drive I dropped a couple of game boxes on the tray and broke it. So now my 360 is digital media only.
I'm a latecomer to the franchise but Borderlands sure is addicting.
I have watched the coverage of the new SimCity game with glee, thinking this would be the game that gets me to dual-boot into Windows. Now that it's out, I don't think I will purchase it. Too many "core" features were removed that it's just not the same: always-online, no saves to go back, tiny cities, no landscaping abilities, and topped off by poor macro simulation.
That's disappointing. I had high hopes for it. I remember playing hours of SimCity 2000.
and I played hours and hours of the original. Every game after that I was just like "more stuff to keep track of? Help!" I also own Civilazation III and Europa Universalis III and haven't played either due to the same fear.
I played both (but the original far less) and think 2000 was superior in every way but one: power distribution. So many power lines...
Nonsense. Who doesn't love stringing power lines everywhere?
Civ III was ok, but I've only even attempted Civ IV twice because it is entirely too daunting.
Played a lot of Civ III. Skipped over IV, and have played a crap-ton of V. There are certainly lots of things to keep track of, but it definitely can take a lot of time. There are plenty of times I wish I could speed things up.
Haven't played anything new this past few months. Too many other things going on to get to games.
2000 was probably the peak of the series. So many hours went into playing that game.
I had a Genesis but was definitely a Nintendo kid so my knowledge of the Genesis library is fairly sparse, but I do have some recommendations I can make.
- Mutant League Hockey: This one seems pretty obvious I suppose, maybe you've already played it. Demon goals!
- Skitchin': EA was pretty awesome in these days. The title is a portmanteau for "skating" and "hitching" (as in, to the back of a car). It's basically like Road Rash on rollerblades, but I like it better than all but the 3DO Road Rash games. I remember it having pretty awesome music at the time, but these days all I can remember is that one of the tracks was called "Spicy Placenta."
- Vectorman: This was Sega's CGI rendered platformer to respond to Donkey Kong Country more or less. I liked it more than DKC at the time but I haven't played it in 20 years so who knows how I'd feel today.
- Comix Zone: This was a really unique beat-'em-up where instead of scrolling along a belt, the screens you moved through were panels in a comic book. It was really stylized and really damn fun.
- Gunstar Heroes: Treasure rules. Awesome run-'n-gun action game.
- Contra: Hard Corps: I only played it briefly, but it's hard as nails, and it's Contra.
- General Chaos: Another cool EA game. It was like a hybrid RTS/action game.
Now I have an urge to buy a handful of Genesis games. Darn.
now I have an urge to fantasize about playing video games
Vectorman! Yeah, I remember playing the crap out of that one. It was all sorts of fun.
LOVED Vectorman. Beat it five or six times. The piranha boss always murdered me until I figured out how to beat him.
Contra: Hard Corps is the toughest Contra game I've played. It's also the most enjoyable Contra game I've played.
As far as Genesis goes, I had Vectorman, Prime Time Football With Deion Sanders, all the Sonic games (including Spinball, which was fun at first, but also something akin to beating ones head against a brick wall for an hour), some James Bond game (which was pretty bad) and Jurassic Park (could never figure out the last level as Dr. Grant).
Now I have the urge to hook the Genesis up and play.
Contra: Hard Corps is the toughest Contra game I've played. It's also the most enjoyable Contra game I've played.
I've heard this pretty universally. This is part of why I feel I'm missing out because I haven't really played it. I should maybe rectify that soon. I think it's on the Wii Virtual Console, maybe I'll pick it up when it makes its way over to the updated Wii U VC.
A few of those are on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. vectorman is pretty fun, and very pretty for the time. Comix Zone is one of a kind, and once you adjust to the amped difficulty, it's rewarding and fun itself.
I finished Uncharted 3 yesterday. The final boss was a QTE fight again, like in the first game, which was disappointing because I have extremely fast fingers so it was one of the easiest segments of the game for me. However, the set pieces up to that point were ludicrously fun and inventive.
I got Disney's Brave for my chilluns a couple of months ago. It's surprisingly fun. I may have mentioned this last month, but whatever.
I played Jak II for the third time. It's still awesome.
Closure is my pick for little-known indie game of the month. It's difficult, smart and moody. Good times.