|
When you think of Sega's most
beloved arcade classics, what comes to mind? Most
likely, it'll be endlessly playable hits like Star Jacker,
Ninja Princess, and Penguin Land. Who could forget
the addictive action of Sindbad Mystery, or the advanced
graphics in Sega Samurai? Oh, you don't even remember
them. Never mind.
 To be perfectly honest, this is not one of the better
classic collections on the Sega Saturn. The games aren't
as impressive as the ones in the Sega Ages collection released
in the United States, and they don't hold your attention the
way Midway's exceptional Arcade's Greatest Hits games
had. You don't get a lot of extra features, either...
just some basic configuration options and a simple but clever
interface straight out of an H. G. Wells novel.
Selecting a game takes you back in time, from the date the
collection was released all the way back to the late
1970's. You don't get anything as stylish as a DeLorean
to make this trip, but the antique in the center of the screen
is at least as reliable as the telephone booth in Bill and
Ted's Excellent Adventure... and you won't need to eat any
pudding cups to keep it working.
Your journey starts behind the
starting flag of Sega's racing game Monaco GP. You could
think of this as the precursor to more popular Sega racing
games such as Turbo and the Genesis release Super Monaco
GP. For a game released in the late 1970's, Monaco GP is
surprisingly impressive... the graphics are brightly colored
and full of detail, and it's fun to play, perhaps even more
than Turbo was thanks to its overhead perspective, which makes
your proximity to other drivers less
ambiguous.
Once you've sped past the finish
line in Monaco GP, you'll make a quick stop at the next game
in the collection, Sega Samurai. Although this was
released in the same year as Monaco GP, there's a massive
difference in quality that divides the two games.
Frankly, I'm amazed that Sega thought anyone would want to put
quarters into this one... even a BASIC programmer would have
been embarassed to admit that he made this primitive action
game, set in fuedal Japan. The obscenely choppy gameplay
coupled with your samurai's weapon of choice, a tiny sword
which forces you to get dangerously close to your opponents
before you can skewer them with the blade, makes Sega Samurai
a dud that would have been better off stranded in the 70's
along with other colossal mistakes from that decade, like
Richard Nixon's presidency and bell bottom pants.
The other games in the collection
are the creamy middle sandwiched between the highs of Monaco
GP and the lows of Sega Samurai. The first of these is
Sindbad Mystery, an oddball maze game which requires players
to pick up question marks to reveal the location of a buried
treasure. Along the way, you'll be attacked by wizards
and wolfmen, but they're easily dispatched by rolling boulders
over them. Next up is Star Jacker, a weak Xevious
derivitive which forces you to pilot all three of your ships
at once. This concept worked in Sega's other shooter
Tac-Scan, but here, the extra ships just makes you a larger,
more vulnerable target. Finally, there's Ninja Princess,
a brightly colored action game similar to Commando but set in
ancient Japan, and Penguin Land, a frustrating puzzle game
which requires you to roll an egg to the bottom of the screen
without breaking it (good luck... you'll need it!). This
is the SG-1000 version of Penguin Land, by the way, not the
superior Master System release that came several years
later.
It's more fun to think of ways to
improve this collection than to actually play it. I can
think of a few off the top of my head... if Sega wanted to
include a shooter on the disc, why not the award-winning
Zaxxon? Nobody in their right minds would ever want to
play a dud like Star Jacker instead. Where's the
promotional artwork for these games? How about
interviews with the games' creators? I can understand
why the designer of Sega Samurai wouldn't want to be caught on
camera, but c'mon, at least SOME of these guys should be
willing to discuss their creations. Sega Ages Memorial 2
is just too full of missed opportunities and irrelevant games
to make it worthwhile... and the fact that many of these games
are already supported by MAME drives the final nail into the
coffin of this pointless collection. |
|
Sega Ages Memorial Vol.
2
Sega
Classic Collection
  
If you need a little practice, set
the games to "Free Play" for unlimited lives.
There's a smattering of Japanese
here and there, but illustrations make it easy to select the
games you want to play.
Load times are quite reasonable...
it only takes four or five seconds to load each of the
games.
The first Sega Ages Memorial
Collection included Head-On (apply directly to Saturn), Pengo,
Up 'n Down, and Flicky.
|
