Mega Archive: Part XL: From Last Action Hero to Virtual Pinball

I know, you didn't think I'd realize that 40 is XL and not XXXX, didn't you? I'm not as look as I dumb, turns out. Anyway, after passing that incredibly low bar, I'm back once again for more delicious Sega Genesis/Mega Drive tapes. Well, at least that's what I'd like to report but we're still neck-deep in the holiday shovelware rush of November '93 and that means more licensed tie-ins. Five of them, to be exact, some of which are notoriously poor. The rest are racing and sports games for the most part so this won't be my favorite update to write but... this is the life I chose, I guess. The Mega Drive life. Drive-a-Live?

Now that we've passed the 500 mark, I keep wanting to put up a signpost or something, you know? Like "this many miles left to the end of the road" with the number of remaining games (about 400, if you're wondering), or maybe a chart that compares the Mega Drive to how far other consoles managed to reach with their (licensed) libraries. For instance, we passed the N64 a while back: that lightweight couldn't even make it to 400. Conversely, the NES, SNES, and PS1 will forever be specks in the distance even once we're done here: they had libraries in excess of a thousand games, and several thousand in the case of the last of those. Heck, the Switch is up to something like 3,000 and stuff is still coming out on it as we wait for news on its fresh and shiny successor. I don't even know what would qualify as a "good tenure" in terms of a console's total number of games available by today's standard but given Mega Drive was leading the western world in sales for a time you can't argue it didn't do its darndest.

I was going to do some graphs once I hit 500, wasn't I? Whoops. Just have to settle with ten more of these Mega Archive entries instead; that's already probably plenty of listening to me go on and on. Be sure to check in with the Mega Archive MegaSpreadMegaSheet for all the info and links you might want and plenty more you probably don't.

Part XL: 501-510 (November '93)

501: Last Action Hero

Developer: B.I.T.S.
Publisher: Sony Imagesoft
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: November 1993
EU Release: N/A
Franchise: N/A
Genre: Brawler / Vehicular Combat
Theme: "Magic Ticket" My Ass, McBain
Premise: Action movie buff Danny Madigan is shocked when he is warped into the world of his favorite series, but not so shocked that he can't spend the whole time pointing out plot holes and illogical inconsistencies. And that little boy grew up to be CinemaSins, lord help us all.
Availability: It's a licensed game nobody should want based on a movie more people should watch.
Preservation: Starting with a real banger this month, Last Action Hero is the video game tie-in for the Schwarzenegger movie of the same name, one notorious (at the time) for embracing the ironic meta commentary typical of the 1990s to deconstruct the Austrian Oak's prolific '80s career. The movie was actually a great deal of fun if you were the same type of wiseass action-movie-loving kid as the movie's floppy-haired protagonist, getting so meta as to include an animated cat police officer (he gets results so no-one bats an eye) or identifying a mob plant because he's being played by F. Murray Abraham ("he killed Mozart!"). The game's nowhere near as fun, sadly, scuttled as it was by both the usual licensed game deadline restrictions and a bizarre set of rules inspired by all the legal scrutiny games had fallen under due to the ongoing Senator Lieberman/Night Trap business. For instance, action icon Jack Slater could no longer use guns (too violent) and had to politely punch everyone out instead and there's no way you could put a kid in a brawler so the movie's main character was conspicuously absent (though I guess they had a point there). The movie got lambasted quite severely and I bet having an exceptionally poor tie-in probably didn't help. It may be an ignominious introduction but this is also the first Genesis game from British developer B.I.T.S. (later Bits Studio) who would perhaps become best known for the Die Hard game-only sequel Die Hard: Vendetta (apparently originally supposed to be a N64 game?). We'll be seeing more movie tie-ins from them soon enough.
Wiki Notes: SNES double-dip. No additional work needed.

502: NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana

Developer: BlueSky Software
Publisher: Sega
JP Release: 1994-02-04
NA Release: November 1993
EU Release: N/A
Franchise: Joe Montana Football
Genre: Football
Theme: Football
Premise: Football
Availability: Like all games in annualized sport simulation franchises it was obsolete within a year.
Preservation: Who's ready for some football? Well, I never am, but here we are regardless. Sega had been trucking along with their Madden NFL competitor series Joe Montana Football for quite some time by this fourth entry so they had a pretty firm grasp on the figurative pigskin, once again handled by Californian studio BlueSky Software thanks to their Sega exclusivity contract. We're mostly talking iterative improvements here, carrying over the digitized (and very robotic) "sports talk" live commentary from its immediate predecessors and switching back to the vertical perspective of the field that had become the genre standard by this point. Despite the franchise being named for him, this would be the last game of the series to feature Montana's endorsement: later games would drop the "starring Joe Montana" and just stick with the generic "NFL Football [year]" format, which continued right up until the final days of the Genesis. Which is to say, we're going to see many more of these games and I'm going to have even less to say about them each time. Look forward to that.
Wiki Notes: Screenshots and a header image, with minor edits everywhere else.

503: Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing

Developer: Gremlin Graphics
Publisher: GameTek (NA) / Konami (EU)
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: November 1993
EU Release: 1994
Franchise: Formula 1
Genre: Racing
Theme: Cars Go Brrm
Premise: Let this "Nigel" man sell you on Formula 1 with this high-speed racing simulation game.
Availability: Nope, another endorsed/licensed sports game.
Preservation: Welcome to what the British F1 scene looked like in the early '90s, with the affable but dull mustachioed Nigel Mansell representing the circuit in this nation for many years as a perfect metaphor for a sport that should be way more exciting than it actually was. The same could be said of this game, which perhaps takes to the simulation aspect a little too faithfully as well as feeling a bit antiquated compared to other racers from this era (Daytona USA is only five months off). While simultaneously released on Mega Drive and SNES, and from the same developer no less (Gremlin Graphics, another British studio making their Genesis debut this entry), the two games have some significant differences chief of which is that the Genesis version follows the vehicle from a third-person perspective while the SNES version opts for a first-person driver's seat view. If you were a fan of the 1992 F1 season this game gives you plenty of options for real-life drivers and courses alike, but there were more compelling alternatives out there for racing fans in general including the previous year's Lotus Turbo Challenge and the upcoming Lotus II RECS (both originally from Gremlin Graphics as well). Also, don't ask me why Konami were the ones publishing this in Europe. I guess they saw some sense in publishing a British-made F1 game with a British F1 spokesman in the only territory likely to give a hoot.
Wiki Notes: SNES double-dip. Just needed the European box art/release.

504: Pink Goes to Hollywood

Developer: HeadGames
Publisher: TecMagik
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: November 1993
EU Release: April 1994
Franchise: The Pink Panther
Theme: A-cat-emy Award Nominated
Premise: The Pinkest Pu- wait, let me start over. The Fuchsiaest Feline makes his Genesis debut with this movie-themed platformer.
Availability: Licensed game. We're due another reboot though.
Preservation: Oh, hey, I remember this game. I rented it for SNES back when I was still a dumb kid who didn't realize the Pink Panther cartoons were based on live-action Peter Sellers comedies where the titular cat was actually a gemstone. My enduring memory was that it wasn't terrible but nor was it particularly notable; in terms of licensed feline platformers I'd probably rank it above the Chester Cheetah games but just below Virgin Interactive's The Lion King. (Man, "ranking the licensed cat platformers" would be a truly cursed project. Free blog/video idea if anyone wants it, though.) So yeah, a '90s platformer video game based on a '60s animated series (which, fine, did actually get a reboot around this time) and tacitly named for a controversial '80s British band whose biggest hit was about say gex: that certainly has "youth demographic" written all over it. We have another new face with this game's developers: HeadGames, a short-lived outfit from San Francisco that worked briefly with Sega of America on some other licensed games before being folded into edutainment developers CAPS Software in 1995. That we've already introduced two new developers that will be working on almost nothing but Genesis licensed games from here on out should give you some insight into the wonderful future we have awaiting us on the Mega Archive.
Wiki Notes: SNES double-dip. Just some Genesis-related release info.

505: Race Drivin'

Developer: Polygames
Publisher: Tengen
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: November 1993
EU Release: N/A
Franchise: Hard Drivin'
Genre: Race Drivin'
Theme: Race Drivin'
Premise: Race Drivin'
Availability: It's in Midway Arcade Treasures 3 but nothing more recent than that.
Preservation: This region-exclusive Genesis port of Race Drivin', a polygonal sequel to Hard Drivin', comes to us courtesy of original arcade developer Atari Games's console software publisher alter-ego Tengen and our old friends at Polygames, formerly Sterling Silver Software, which had also developed the Genesis port of Hard Drivin' way back in 1990 (covered in Mega Archive #6, so it was an early one). The arcade machine was packed with all sorts of high-tech features, including force feedback on the steering wheel and triple foot pedals including the clutch. Naturally, none of those vehicle accoutrements made it into the 16-bit home versions, which also struggled to keep the polygonal graphics at a decent framerate (for both SNES and Genesis they reduced the gameplay window and put some static dashboard graphics in the empty gaps). That fidelity issue was cleared up somewhat by this game's enhanced Sega Saturn port, though the issue there was that it was exclusive to Japan. Dunno if Race Drivin' wins "Best Game" for this Mega Archive entry but it certainly clinches "Most Imaginative Title".
Wiki Notes: SNES double-dip. Needed some MD screenshots.

506: RoboCop 3

Developer: Eden Entertainment
Publisher: Flying Edge
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: November 1993
EU Release: November 1993
Franchise: RoboCop
Genre: Half Shooter/Half Shoot 'em Up/All Licensed Dreck
Theme: Shootin' Dudes in the Balls.
Premise: OCP's trying to knock down Old Detroit for their new Delta City and make thousands of innocent citizens homeless in the process. RoboCop's having none of it, even if he has to fight through the RoboNinjas of OCP's new Japanese owners to stop them. God, this movie's dumb.
Availability: Wouldn't you know it? It's another licensed game. OCP's not reviving this one.
Preservation: Oh jeez, RoboCop 3. The one where they switched actors from the inestimable Peter Weller, killed off the second most appealing character in the franchise, and then gave the guy a jetpack and a streetwise hacker orphan to protect. Just saying, there were better RoboCop movies to make a game around, including all of them. Well, at least this one doesn't have any cyberwitches or whatever it was that gave Minotti so much trouble with that Xbox adaptation. I'm more familiar with the home computer version of this which went for a very early polygonal FPS type of game that ran like molasses, but the console version pretty much plays like all the other RoboCop games: a side-scrolling shooter where you occasionally (by which I mean "most of the time") have to aim diagonally up to shoot crooks popping their heads out of first-floor windows to throw dynamite at poor old Murphy. They do pay homage to that jetpack though, putting RoboCop through shoot 'em up levels as he flies through Detroit. Motown more like Mow 'em Down. That's all I got; RoboCop 3 bums me out too much to bring my A-game.
Wiki Notes: SNES double-dip. Needed some Genesis-specific releases and screenshots.

507: Sensible Soccer: European Champions

Developer: Sensible Software
Publisher: Renegade / Sony Imagesoft
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: N/A
EU Release: November 1993
Franchise: Sensible Soccer
Genre: Soccer
Theme: Soccer
Premise: Soccer, but it's sensible.
Availability: Sensible World of Soccer showed up on Xbox 360 but that's as recent as this series goes.
Preservation: Ah, Sensi. The premier European soccer sim is one that, true to its ironic name, doesn't take itself too seriously while all the same having an eminently playable, more action-oriented core built for quick and tense matches. Of course, it's still a soccer game, so my antipathy is out in full force here but I'll admit to finding a few moments of joy back in the day for what would prove to be one of the last of the "approachable" soccer game franchises out there. After this it's International Superstar Soccer, Pro Evo, and FIFA, all of which quickly lost me due to their stronger focus on simulation aspects which gave them slower paces and steeper learning curves. This version of Sensible Soccer is in fact the first sequel, Sensible Soccer 92/93, which came out shortly after the original and is pretty much a mildly improved iteration (so, like every other annual sports game). That first Sensible Soccer never left the European home computer market. We'll see this franchise one more time in 1994 for its International Edition, which arrived just in time for the FIFA World Cup of that year.
Wiki Notes: SNES double-dip. Mega Drive-specific screenshots and releases.

508: Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge

Developer: Software Creations
Publisher: Flying Edge
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: 1993
EU Release: November 1993
Franchise: Marvel Comics
Genre: Brawler / Platformer
Theme: Superheroics on a Budget
Premise: Spidey and a few of the strongest X-Men join forces to beat up the worst villain of all: a nerd who loves video games too much. Nice to feel seen by my heroes, I guess.
Availability: Licensed game. One I doubt Marvel wants to acknowledge.
Preservation: Our second Acclaim game this month is none other than this Marvel crossover that managed to disappoint two (admittedly overlapping) audiences simultaneously. Switching between five characters—Spider-Man and the four X-Men of Cyclops (boring), Gambit (creeper), Storm (overpowered), and Wolverine (Canadian)—the idea of the game is to complete each character's two solo "chapters" before teaming up for the final showdown against the bowtie-sporting antagonist Arcade in his giant mech. Some effort was made to match the powers and level design to each of the characters but it's not enough to exonerate the dull gameplay and annoying, maze-like levels. I'm a fan of Software Creations's original works (none of which made it to Genesis, sadly) but their licensed games and ports left much to be desired.
Wiki Notes: SNES double-dip. Genesis screenshots.

509: Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

Developer: Malibu Interactive
Publisher: THQ
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: November 1993
EU Release: N/A
Franchise: Thomas the Tank Engine
Genre: Edutainment / Simulation
Theme: Dun-dun-dun-dun, Dun-dun, Duuuuuun
Premise: Help Thomas and friends (and other coworkers, with whom he merely shares an acquaintanceship) round up all of Sir Topham Hatt's loose carriages and deliver them to the station.
Availability: Licensed game. There's been several Thomas games since though and I'm sure they're all as equally compelling.
Preservation: Long before his absolutely canon star turns in Skyrim and Resident Evil 4, Thomas the Tank Engine featured in kid-friendly games like this, which presented what was more of a mini-game collection of simple, easy challenges suited for its younger audience revolving around navigating train tracks. I don't think there's ever been a stage in my life where I wasn't perturbed by those giant, expressive faces on otherwise inanimate objects. It's like, what are the rules of this world? Can anything sprout a face and start talking to me? What about the toilet when it's in use? These were the type of intrusive thoughts that kept me awake at night as a child, and so I'm happy to see that others have embraced the scare potential of these uncanny locomotives through the above famous mods or the recent survival horror sim Choo-Choo Charles. At any rate, there's not much to say about this baby game beyond that it lets you choose the color palette of your chosen engine just in case you wanted to create the ultimate blasphemy that is a red Thomas. James is the red one, goddammit. What the hell is wrong with you?
Wiki Notes: SNES double-dip. Could this be a new Mega Archive record? No extra work needed.

510: Virtual Pinball

Developer: BudgeCo + Electronic Arts
Publisher: Electronic Arts
JP Release: N/A
NA Release: November 1993
EU Release: January 1994
Franchise: N/A
Genre: Pinball
Theme: Channeling Your Inner-Bakalar
Premise: Play some pinball or build your own table in this 16-bit take on Pinball Construction Set.
Availability: The original Pinball Construction Set had its source code officially released to the public just recently, but that's about it as far as "new releases".
Preservation: We finish this batch with perhaps the most original game this entry in Virtual Pinball, which belongs to the time-honored practice of giving players a fully-featured level editor to work with to pre-empt them mouthing off online about being better designers. It's an adaptation of BudgeCo's 1983 Apple II game Pinball Construction Set—part of a series of level editor-enriched Apple II games that Electronic Arts put out, all from different developers—that was given a 16-bit facelift. There are of course limitations in putting a game like this out on console instead of home computer, chiefly that it's impossible to share creations and the cartridge memory can only fit ten tables in total all of which have to be crafted from prefabricated parts, but its neat that budding game developers could have something like this to tinker with on the Genesis. It might not have Sonic or Mötley Crüe MIDIs to sell it, but I bet you'd get a lot of pinbang for your pinbuck with a game like this. Developer BudgeCo is simply the label used by Bill Budge, the original creator and programmer of the Pinball Construction Set, who has had an interesting, mostly "behind the scenes" career having switched from EA to 3DO to Sony Computer Entertainment then back to EA and finally to Google, from which he officially retired a few years ago. Hey, maybe he programmed in one of those fun Google Search Easter eggs about pinball! Let me just type in "playing with balls" real quick...
Wiki Notes: Our only other game this month that wasn't a SNES double dip. Needed some body text and a header image.