PixlBit

I channel my inner '90s mascot attitude and explore a recent troubling trend.

At last year’s PAX East I attended a panel hosted by one of the marketing magicians for Sega of America in the '90s, Al Nilson. At that panel I got up to ask a question about the NEMO project he worked on in the late '80s, but before I did I told this quick story about the time I borrowed the first Sonic the Hedgehog game off my friend when it was first released:  While I was at home being blown away by the technical achievement of Sonic Team’s new baby, my friend called me and said his mother was mad he lent out his new game and was making him come by in a couple hours to pick it up. Since my time was now limited to how much of this amazing new game I was going to be able to play,  I decided to hunker down and try to beat the game before he came to get it. I focused and played as carefully as I could. I ended up beating the game without continuing and with all the Chaos Emeralds. I had the honor of telling Al Nilson it was one of the best "Gaming Zen" moments of my life. He appreciated my story and my love for Sonic.

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Jump Around

Developed by Masaya, published by DreamWorks (no relation to the movie studio), and released in 1990, Trampoline Terror was quite the unique title if you managed to find out about it somehow. I’ve got to hand it to the design team-- they had me fooled with this game. Thanks to my youthful first-time impression of the game many moons ago, I always thought I was playing an overhead action title. I had so much fun with the game, that I didn’t even notice that I was really playing a puzzle\strategy game sneakily dressed in an action game’s clothes (more or less). I’m not sure why it didn’t click with me until now- some 20 years later- especially when most of the gameplay elements practically scream “this is a puzzle game”.

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Some assembly required

As a small fledgling in the first grade, I liked comic books superheroes, but I wasn’t nearly as familiar with them as I am now. Sure, I knew about guys like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man. But for the most part, I had only a narrow understanding of the world of comic books and the heroes within them.

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Lightning strikes thrice.

A while back when I officially started collecting retro consoles and games, I swore that I’d never become one of those elitists in the gaming community who always makes a big deal about his vast, all-encompassing knowledge of video games; at least not in public. However, in my own mind, I was the master of all things retro.  Well, that all came to a screeching halt in recent years thanks to Wikipedia when I discovered that, aside from owning the fifth game in the series, I knew next to nothing about the Thunder Force saga.  As I learned of its existence on Sega's 16-bit console, it became painfully clear that I had barely gotten my toes wet with Technosoft’s  bread and butter.  How I missed it back in the day, I will never know.  But after playing Thunder Force III, I soon realized that there was a whole ocean I was missing out on: the Genesis was the system for shoot-‘em-ups.

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A Star Fox clone this is not.

Looks can be deceiving, particularly in the case of 3D Galaxy Force II. After watching a bit of footage of the game, I thought I was in for a fantastic Star Fox-like experience, piloting through space, taking down enemies and battling epic bosses at the conclusion of each level. While these are things you’ll do throughout the game, it never exhibits the finesse of the Star Fox series and the imprecise controls ensure that most players aren’t going to get much out of this particular 3D Classic.

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