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In the 80's and early 90's, ninjas were a big deal. They were everywhere in media, from cartoons like G.I. Joe to movies like the American Ninja series, those of the adolescent mutant amphibious variety, and of course, video games. For those who played on Nintendo consoles, we had a number of options, but the most obvious of those was the Ninja Gaiden series, at least through the 8-bit days. On the Sega side of the fence, there was Shinobi, which received a Master System reinterpretation of the arcade game. The series branched into 3 paths, 1 being the more straight-forward Shadow Dancer which followed the original arcade game (and had a different, but similar outing on the Genesis), and then the 2 Super Shinobi games for the Mega Drive, which we know in the West as The Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III, respectively. The 3rd path is the 2 GG Shinobi games on the Game Gear, but whether or not those are canon in the series I cannot say. The final 2D entry, prior to the series' soft reboot on PS2, is often ignored, or worse, frequently either forgotten or maligned. With the RF Generation Community Playthrough group focusing on the series' 16-bit entries this month, I thought it was timely to look at the final original 2D game from the venerable series.
Continue reading Shinobi Legions: The Forgotten Shinobi Game
The Punisher game on Sega is a fantastic game. I was excited to make a custom Sega controller with a Punisher theme to it. He is certainly a gritty, rough guy, so the controller had to reflect that. I used a drill, two part Apoxy sculpt and some acrylic paints to make this one of kind Sega controller come together
[img width=420 height=523]http://i.imgur.com/vhWIjlV.jpg[/img]
The Yakuza series has been around for quite some time. The first game dates back to the later years of the Playstation 2, and the 7th main game in the series recently released in Japan and is set to come to the West soon. All the regular releases, plus the spinoffs, prequel, and slowly releasing remakes and upcoming remasters make Yakuza one of the most actively developed video games series to date. [iYakuza 6[/i] was developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega for Sony's Playstation 4. It was originally released in 2016 in Japan. A worldwide release followed two years later in 2018. This long running series has quickly been gaining popularity in the West, which has mostly been propelled by the prequel Yakuza 0. Sega's been spacing out the timing of their Yakuza releases, so the market does not become overwhelmed by constant releases as the West gets caught up with the main story on top of the remakes.
Continue reading Yakuza 6: The Song of Life
[img width=620 height=440]https://www.nightfallcrew.com/wp-content/gallery/sega-genesis-system-console-ntsc-usa/IMG_2471.jpg?ef6e10[/img]
"Genesis Does what Nintendon't!"
But let's get more specific, what are the games that best show what the Genesis does?
Continue reading RFGen Top 20 Games- Sega Genesis Edition
[img width=607 height=550]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-071/bf/U-071-S-01860-A.jpg[/img]
When springtime rolls around a wide variety of outdoor activities becomes much more alluring. Getting outside and getting some sun is important to even the most hardcore of gamers. Fishing is a great hobby that can be enjoyed year round, but the comfortable temperatures of spring bring out the biggest crowds. It's such a large and popular hobby that Sega decided to make a fishing arcade game, Sega Bass Fishing.
The original arcade cabinet was developed by Sega AM 1 and released in 1997 as Get Bass in Japan. The game was successful enough in the arcade that Sega followed it up with Sega Marine Fishing in 1999. Both games would see console ports on the Sega Dreamcast, Sega Bass Fishing in 1999 and Sega Marine Fishing in 2000. Both games were among the more popular and successful Dreamcast games, as Sega released the Sega Fishing Controller to make the games feel more similar to both the arcade and real life, complete with motion controls.
Continue reading Sega Bass Fishing
[img width=550 height=675]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-131/ms/U-131-S-03820-A.jpg[/img]
The Yakuza series has been a long running saga starting on the PlayStation 2. It actually started fairly late in the console's lifecycle, and a lack of marketing made the first two games go overlooked by most of the Western gaming public at the time. On the other hand this was one of Sega's biggest hits within Japan since the Saturn, so they mostly focused on the home market. Western interest in the series was recently kicked into overdrive with the release of Yakuza 0 and the remakes of the first two games, and a remaster of this third game has already released in Japan. I had played the first Yakuza a couple years before the release of its modern PlayStation 4 remake, Yakuza Kiwami, so I saw firsthand what the improvements were, and the only downgrade in my opinion was the remixed soundtrack. The first Yakuza game I had ever played was Yakuza 4, which seems to be the first game in the series that received a decent amount of attention from Western audiences, but still a shadow of what Yakuza 0 and the Kiwami remakes have enjoyed.
Continue reading Yakuza 3
[img width=560 height=347]https://hobbydb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/processed_uploads/subject_photo/subject_photo/image/21024/1487177367-24608-3767/Beam_20Software_20logo_large.jpg[/img]
In the middle of the 1970s, there were small game development studios popping up all over the world. In Melbourne, Australia; in 1977, one of those companies was Beam Software. Their initial games were developed for the home computers of the early 1980s, and they scored a whopper of an early hit in 1982's The Hobbit. At the tail end of the 80s, they finally made the move into home console development for the NES. A couple early stinkers in the two Back to the Future games did not slow the company down, and they started to get contracts to port arcade games to the console. In the early 1990s, there was a shift in the company's audio staff which saw Gavan Anderson and Tania Smith working on music and audio, but Tania ended up leaving to go on a world tour, and she asked Marshall Parker to be her replacement. Marshall was already 38 years old when he joined Beam Software in 1990, making him one of the older composers even at that time.
Continue reading Composer Compendium: Marshall Parker
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From 1988 to 1993 the S.S.T. band or Sega Sound Team was Sega's in house band that performed rock versions of Sega's arcade hits for compilation albums or Japanese festivals. Join us as we take a look at at the S.S.T. band and their legacy.
Continue reading RF Jamz Vol 3: Back in the SST Band
[img width=700 height=342]http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/jetsetradio/jsrj.jpg[/img]
In the late 1990s, a great push was made by a formerly beloved underdog of video game hardware manufacturing, after bad decisions across a variety of fronts lead to gaming's greatest collapse since the fabled crash of '83. The only player that lost significant ground was Sega, which had always managed to have a bright market in some part of the globe at different points of its history. The Master System's greatest success was in Europe, with the Brazilian market pulling off a surprise punch as well. The Genesis managed to expand the hold to North America, and really tapped into the consumer mainstream, but both consoles lagged behind in Sega's homeland of Japan. All that flipped with the Saturn, when Japan took the spotlight at the expense of everybody else. The Dreamcast was Sega's last gasp, and despite a critically short life, it managed to grab hold of a chunk of North America once again.
Part of the reason for this collapse was the marketing. Sega was poised to grab a chunk of mainstream gamers after pushing their sports games boldly on cable advertisements. This failure in marketing was that it didn't show the true breadth of titles available for the Dreamcast. The commercials showcased more TV friendly and higher quality renderings of Dreamcast game assets, but only really named individual game titles in their commercials. Gone were the sort of list commercials from the Genesis days that showcased both in-game footage, and the actual title of the game on top of it. A prime example of this advertising misstep was with the main character of Jet Grind Radio, Beat. He was spotted in multiple Dreamcast commercials, even getting a solo shot in one, but not once was the name of the game ever dropped. Everything was spliced on top of live footage, and Jet Grind Radio did not get its own commercial to show off anything beyond the style of one character's design in a most inauthentic way.
Continue reading Jet Set Radio
[img width=110 height=61]http://www.rfgeneration.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=7513;type=avatar[/img] This article was authored and submitted by RF Generation's own SirPsycho.
Our seasoned writer has been having computer issues as of late. Best of luck on a full recovery good sir.
Boy are my hands getting tired....
[img width=350 height=546]http://rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-031/bf/U-031-S-00500-A.jpg[/img]
For my return to reviewing, I wanted to talk about something special. You will get a review of two games for the price of one! We will journey to the dark lands of Sega's Master System and look at the Hang-On/Astro Warrior combo cartridge for a dual review.
Continue reading Combo Cartridge Review: Hang-On & Astro Warrior
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Recently, there has been talk between Sony and Microsoft about implementing cross-platform gaming. Though no sort of agreement has been reached yet, and there is only speculation as to what these talks have consisted of, even the slightest notion that these two video game giants have taken the idea into consideration is HUGE! The climate for console developers has drastically changed over the course of time, and while Nintendo still goes its own way, it does so without feeling the need to get into squabbles or spend millions in advertising to inflict insult upon its competition. But, as we all know, this hasn't always been the case.
As a child of the 80's, I remember these targeting ads well and can look back today and see their overt influence over the console choices made by my classmates and I. The feud that Nintendo and Sega started was hotly contested and equally debated on the playground in my day. Nintendo's dominance in my community was so pronounced that no one dared to admit to owning a Sega console for fear of ridicule. What gaming system you owned or didn't own could have socially ruined you among your peers. If you owned a Sega, no one wanted to come over to your house because they couldn't bring their games over, and there wasn't a chance that you could swap games for a few weeks (...sometimes to never have your games returned, but that's another matter all together). In reality, it was a somewhat milder form of bullying, and let's be honest, it still exists among some fanboys/fangirls today.
Continue reading Call Me Traitor
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Sorry guys, you won't be getting a Top Games of 2015 list from me. For one, I don't own a current generation console to play games released this year on, and secondly, my list of my favorite games I played it 2015 will be available early next year when you listen to the RF Generation Playcast (http://rfgenplaycast.podbean.com/) .....shameless plug!! Instead, I'll be focusing on a topic that has baffled and frustrated me (and probably you) for years and that is, "What import games can I play on my North American consoles without having to import systems?" I certainly won't be able to cover every system, but I'll try to cover the more well-known and most-owned consoles. I understand that some imported games can be burned or pirated for play on North American systems; however, since this method is frowned upon by a large majority of the community, I will not be covering or suggesting this method for any system here. I hope many of you will find this article useful and please think of it and my research as my holiday gift to you!
**DISCLAIMER: Please be advised that I have not tried several of these methods myself and that the great majority of the information that I have assembled here has been compiled through research. I have verified as much of the information as possible, but some of it may be incorrect. If you find that something is incorrect, please send me a PM and I can verify and edit this post. Thank you!**
Continue reading Is it Region-Locked or Region-Free?
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I know that some of you are probably disappointed that this isn't a glowing review of Crackdown on the XBox 360. I'm sure that's a great game, but having never played it, I'd like to talk about another game of the same name released on the Sega Mega Drive & Genesis by Sage's Creation in 1990 & 1991 respectively. Crack Down is a port of the original 1989 arcade title of the same name that was developed by Sega for their Sega System 24 arcade board. The game was also ported to the Commodore Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum, the Wii Virtual Console (PAL & Japan only), and most recently (2010), the Genesis/Mega Drive version was made available on Steam.
Continue reading Banana's Rotten Reviews: Crack Down
[img width=250 height=450]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-060/ms/U-060-S-00560-A.jpg[/img]
Welcome back to a world of horror and fright. You may remember last year when I did a review of a game (Thief: The Dark Project [http://www.rfgeneration.c...The-Dark-Project-2639.php]) that many would not consider when pondering their options to step into a good atmosphere that sends chills down your spine and squeals up your throat. The real "horror" came from the masterpiece's years spent in "Development Hell" where its focus was changed about a half dozen times. In contrast to a jumbled mess of juxtaposed design and experimentation that somehow worked brilliantly, this year I bring you D. Just "D." The letter "D." No more. No less. "D."
Continue reading Spooky Plays: D
[img align=left width=81 height=110]http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/y359/necrom99/banana_zps34b800e7.jpeg[/img]Dear RFGeneration Members, as you might have noticed over the past few months, one of our long-time (since 2009) and active members on the site, bombatomba, has had a few of his most recent blog posts promoted to our front page. Our staff has enjoyed reading his work, has followed his blog closely, and used his posts to fill in dates at times when more content was needed. We are happy to announce that bombatomba has accepted our offer to join the blog writing staff and you will be seeing more of his work in the future. Please join our staff in congratulating him and welcoming him to the RFGeneration staff!
[img width=350 height=582]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-060/ms/U-060-S-02190-A.jpg[/img]
Three Dirty Dwarves is a side-scrolling, action game, somewhat in the vein of Golden Axe/Streets of Rage, that was released in 1996 for the Sega Saturn and PC. On the surface, it has lots of great animation, especially for the main characters, a goofy visual aesthetic, amusing sound effects, and co-op for up to three players. However, underneath beats the heart of an arcade game that never was. Be it good or bad, at the end of the day we are left with this somewhat amusing game that remains fun (with a group) yet is nonetheless flawed. So let's go ahead and roll in the dirt a bit and explore Three Dirty Dwarves for the Sega Saturn.
Continue reading Three Dirty Dwarves: A Review
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