Sonic 2 – one of the Mega Drive’s best (Picture: Sega)
Readers discuss their favourite fourth generation video games, from Micro Machines to Zelda: A Link To The Past.
The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader JesseM, and included consoles such as the Mega Drive, SNES, PC Engine, Neo Geo, as well the Atari ST and Amiga and coin-ops released between 1987 and 1993.
There were many different suggestions, across a wide range of formats, but Zelda: A Link To The Past did get mentioned a lot, along with Mario, Sonic, and, surprisingly, Shadowrun.
Best vs. favourite
My favourite 16-bit game is Sonic The Hedgehog 2. It is not objectively the best 16-bit game, it is arguably inferior to its own sequel, let alone Mario’s titles, but it is comfortably my favourite.
It is pretty much the reason why I am a gamer. I did have a hand me down C64 first but Sonic 2 is the reason why I saved up for and convinced my mum to help me buy a Mega Drive. Sonic 2 is the game I have completed the most and the one game of the era I reliably return to every few years.
I find many Mega Drive games rather clunky to control now, which is a shame. SNES titles seem to control better, but I have played far fewer of those, so it might just be a case of comparing the very best SNES games with middling Mega Drive ones.
Sonic has far too many poor gimmicky reinventions. I have played a few but apart from Sonic Mania and the Advance games all that I have tried since the Mega Drive days were terrible, even the ‘good’ ones.
PazJohnMitch
One time only
Lots to choose from in this time frame, so I’ll pick two please…
Ecco The Dolphin first. That was such a relaxing game to play and looked amazing at the time. I was living in London, studying, and had bought a cheap Game Gear (which is a really underrated piece of kit) and upgraded it to a second-hand Mega Drive with a trade-in a few months later. Ecco was a real stress release after a day studying and the girlfriend liked to play it too.
Second would be Micro Machines. Day out with friends, bought this game between us and then had a marathon session for the rest of the day. Brilliant fun and yet never played it together again after that (weirdly).
If you did allow the Game Gear then the two games I remember most, and that played brilliantly, would be the two Sonic games, but 8-bit disqualifies these…
WoDMaN
The past in perspective
Ahh the 16-bit era, I remember it fondly. That jump from my 8-bit, colour clash-tastic Spectrum to the possibility of virtually perfect arcade ports on the brand new Amiga I bought when I got my first ever job (The NewZealand Story and Rainbow Islands being prime examples).
But my favourite 16-bit game? That’s really tough.
So I was thinking about it, and the one that keeps coming to me is Dune 2 on the Amiga. The first ever real-time strategy game I ever played (I did read it was the first ever – but I don’t know if that’s true). I spent so many hours on that game, building up my empire as the Atreides whilst battling the evil Harkonnen and the (made-up for the game) insidious Ordos.
Just one small problem, I never finished it, just as I was getting near the end of it the game slowed down to such a crawl as to become unplayable. Until that point it was great, like nothing else I had played until that time and possibly created a genre? I’m toying with the idea of downloading Dune: Spice Wars, as it looks like a modern take on it.
I know it was also eventually released on consoles, but I just don’t see how would work without a mouse.
If it’s OK I’ve got some special mentions too….
Super Cars 2 by Gremlin Graphics – a top-down racer that really excelled in multiplayer mode. The weapons pick-ups, etc. were great and preceded Mario Kart by a year. (Gremlin were the masters of arcade racing games at this point, they also made the Lotus series of games.)
When it comes to footie games the battle royale was between two top-down behemoths: Dino Dini’s pinball-like Kick Off 2 and the whole Sensible Soccer series. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, but most would agree Sensi was the overall winner.
Geoff Crammond also deserves a mention for two games: first up the absolutely mad Stunt Car Racer, were you raced a car on rollercoaster style tracks with no sides. Second, Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix; the first proper racing sim I ever played, where you had tracks created as realistically as possible (for 1991) and you had to hit your braking points, take the racing line, etc. It was a revelation and if I may be so bold, without it we wouldn’t have Gran Turismo, Forza, the current F1 games, Asseto Corsa, etc.
To be honest I could go on and on but that’s enough from me.
Just one more thing. Occasionally you get people saying, ‘games were better in my day’. To that I would say no, no they weren’t. Games today are absolutely incredible! Want to explore ancient Egypt in full HD with incredible HDR? Go for it. Build a train in Hyrule? Yep, you can do that. Ride a dragon in Skyrim? Of course. Race online with your mates in a proper racing sim? Yep.
Old games are historic, they are important and (some of them) are still fun, but they don’t hold a candle to modern games.
Anyway, that’s my ramble.
The Dude Abides
GC: Although there were many antecedents, including 16-bit games Herzog Zwei and Populous, Dune 2 is the game that coined the term real-time strategy and which almost all subsequent titles modelled themselves on.
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Expert advice
When I read what this weekend’s Hot Topic was about, a small handful of games from the 16-bit consoles came immediately to mind.
Super Mario Bros. 3 and Zelda: A Link To The Past are no-brainers. I loved Strider and Cybernator as well. Also, Streets Of Rage was massive for my mates and I.
This could be a long list but my top choice from the 16-bit era has to be Shadowrun on SNES. It was the first role-playing game I ever played but at £65 I was sceptical to say the least.
The shop was an independent in Swansea called 5th Dimension. They were ahead of their time, the first here to allow trading in of used games. The staff were all knowledgeable, not like the Electronics Boutique that came to Swansea a few years later, where they might as well have been selling trout for all the use they were back then.
One of the staff was a guy called Pete and he really knew his games. If it had been anyone else, I doubt I’d have spent that kind of money on a game of a genre I’d never played before and had no idea if I’d like it or not.
Obviously, if I hadn’t liked Shadowrun it wouldn’t have been the first game I thought of for this Hot Topic. It introduced me to role-playing games, the story and cyberpunk world building were top notch, and I sank a shed load of hours into it when Skyrim was still 20 years away.
I’d always liked platform games, shooters and beat ‘em-ups but Shadowrun was my first role-playing games and we all have good memories of our first.
Mitchell
Arcade action
I never really had much experience with a SNES or Mega Drive until way after, so I’ll have to go with the arcade game WWF WrestleFest. It was a great game with stunning graphics and the best part was it rarely stiffed you, as it was fair for the most part. Legion of Doom aside, most of your opponents were beatable without pumping coin after coin.
I could have said The Simpsons or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but I actually still play WrestleFest every so often.
Bobwallett
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Textbook game design
My suggestion for best 16-bit game is the same as for a whole bunch of other topics but it’s not going to stop me from once again rolling out Zelda: A Link To The Past.
With a lot of games, it’s easy to see what their immediate influences were, even if they’re then building on those in interesting ways. The origin of the series has famously been linked to stories about Shigeru Miyamoto’s childhood but I’m not sure which games that came before A Link To The Past obviously directly influenced it, other than the first Zelda game (plus it’s clearly taking a cue from generic fantasy settings). It just seems so beyond everything that came before it that it feels like its main influence wasn’t anything in gaming but rather just the high-level concept of adventure.
But considering how relatively primitive the first Zelda game was, you’d expect A Link To The Past arrived a couple of decades later, rather than… let’s see… five years.
Five years?! And with another instalment in-between! For reference, Red Dead Redemption 2 and the God Of War reboot were released over five years ago and I’m not sure I’ve seen a more technically advanced game since.
The presentation was excellent, with colourful visuals that still appeal today. But especially that MIDI music with the satisfyingly chubby brass of the overworld theme and the ethereal strings in some of the dungeons and forests, etc.
It’s the design of the world and what you do in it that gives the game its status, though. I’m sure on that front it’s been a lot more influential than it’s widely given credit for but I feel like it also teaches a lot of valuable lessons that often remain unlearned, like how to provoke a player’s curiosity and lead them towards a discovery, and how to make them want to spend time in a world rather than just tick off a set list of goals that are handed to you.
If I’d ever wanted to learn how to make a game, I’d want it to feature heavily in whichever textbook I was consulting.
Panda
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Readers discuss their favourite fourth generation video games, from Micro Machines to Zelda: A Link To The Past.