Sam's video game collection essentials

Sonic the Hedgehog burst onto the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive at the start of the ‘90s, and quickly became one of the most iconic characters in video gaming, providing a mascot for Sega to rival Nintendo’s Mario and catapulting the popularity of the console up to being pretty much neck-and-neck with the Super Nintendo outside of Japan. In the mid ‘90s, things took a turn for the worse for Sega to put it mildly, and their next big console, the Sega Saturn, failed to gain any traction in America or Europe. There were a variety of reasons for this, but one can’t help but consider the absence of a true mainline Sonic the Hedgehog sequel as a major missed opportunity, and one that seems rather baffling. There was Sonic 3D Blast, but that was primarily developed for the Genesis/Mega Drive and was merely spruced up a little for a Saturn port which wasn’t going to make a big splash. A Saturn exclusive, Sonic X-Treme, was planned, but the early stages of its development were troubled and led to the...

There have been quite a few video games based on fishing which date back to consoles much older than the Dreamcast, but I haven’t covered a single one until now. That’s not to say I never played any. I owned Super Black Bass on SNES as a kid, but I never got very far in it, and I didn’t love it enough to be included on this list. I respect video games that try to simulate the real-life activity of fishing as accurately as they can, but that’s not really something I’m interested in. So why does Sega Bass Fishing make my list? Well, because it’s an arcade game! And because of that, there’s less focus on realism, and instead players get a tight, faster-paced experience. So you might consider this a fishing game for people who don’t normally like fishing games. The game plays fine with a standard Dreamcast controller. But as you can see, a special fishing rod controller was produced for this game, similar to the one used for the arcade version. There’s basic motion sensing capabilities in ...

Rhythm games are known for utilizing unique control schemes. They certainly can use a regular controller like any other video game, but many utilize some kind of unusual controller, such as one based on a real musical instrument to give the player a feeling like they are some kind of musician. In this case, we have a rather unique and creative example of a rhythm game that uses a special controller. It’s Samba de Amigo, a game that you play by shaking a special set of maracas! How does this game work? Well, as you can see in the screen shot, there are six circles displayed during gameplay. These represent different regions around your body. As the game starts, dots will appear originating from the center of the circle, moving towards one of them, and the player must shake one of their maracas in the designated region as the dot hits the circle, and this usually corresponds to the beat of the song in some way. Sometimes there’s a string of dots which require you to constantly shake the ...

The biggest American football video game franchise in history which continues to this day, as you may know, is the Madden series. So it was more than a little concerning when EA, the developer of Madden and a variety of other games on many consoles, decided that they weren’t going to develop any games at all for the Dreamcast. But thankfully for Sega, at least in the football department, they had a more-than-adequate plan B for getting the sport onto their new console. They tasked a company called Visual Concepts with making a brand new football game from scratch. And thus, NFL 2K would be on store shelves on day one when the Dreamcast launched in North America. As previously mentioned, the Dreamcast when it first launched was considerably more powerful than any other console on the market. Americans were all about the latest cutting-edge graphics. And more realism in sports games was definitely something that was going to turn heads. And that’s exactly what NFL 2K delivered. With exce...

What we have here is an enhanced port of Mortal Kombat 4, a game that had hit arcades over two years prior. For more info on MK4, check out my previous post about the Nintendo 64 version. This version was exclusive to the Dreamcast, and as of this writing it has never been ported to any other system. What’s new in Gold? Most notably, several new characters, all of whom return from previous Mortal Kombat games. They all have their own brand new endings too, complete with cheesy voice acting that I find a little charming. There’s also a few new stages, a much smaller addition but a nice touch regardless. There’s also the ability to select what weapon you’d like to have. In regular MK4, each character has their own unique weapon, but now you can choose weapon and character separately. Weapons don’t really play that big a role in gameplay, but that’s still nice.  Mortal Kombat Gold was met with lukewarm reception upon release. Two years doesn’t sound like a real long time, but in the ...

The three previous Marvel-and-Capcom crossover fighting games all featured a roster that was about the same size. This meant that as new characters were added in a new installment, others sat on the bench. Then, for this new title launching in early 2000, Capcom decided to break down the revolving door. This new crossover fighter would feature practically EVERY fighter from the two Marvel fighting games Capcom made, plus every one from the three crossover titles. The only exceptions (if I’m remembering right) are bosses, one secret character, and one Japan-exclusive character. Other than that, everyone is here, plus plenty of new fighters too. Marvel vs. Capcom 1 had a roster of 15 playable fighters. Marvel vs Capcom 2 has FIFTY-SIX!!  There are major gameplay changes, too. The first is that matches are three-on-three tag team fights instead of two-on-two. There is much more emphasis on “assists” now, that is, calling in one of your non-active fighters to perform a brief attack. No...

It started with Capcom making a couple 2D fighting games featuring Marvel characters, in each of which they included a secret Capcom guest character. Then they made a tag-team fighting game called X-Men vs. Street Fighter, featuring a roster consisting of characters from those two groups from the two companies. For the next installment, they went beyond just X-Men and made Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, bringing non-X-Men like Spider-Man and Hulk into the fray. And now, Capcom would bring the scope on their end beyond Street Fighter for “Marvel vs. Capcom”, and a variety of characters from Capcom’s rich history would be present such as Mega Man, Strider Hiryu and Morrigan from Darkstalkers. Marvel vs. Capcom still very much resembles the previous installments in terms of both graphics and gameplay basics. You can see my post about X-Men vs. Street Fighter for more info on how gameplay works. What’s different about Marvel vs. Capcom? Well, “assist” attacks are done differently...