Retro Gaming Australia

Pit Fighter was one of those arcade games that got ported to every system around, regardless of whether they could actually handle the game or not. One such port was to the Sega Master System, whose version of the game is pretty damn lame – but at least it’s better than the Spectrum version.

Want to play the worst versions of Carmageddon around? Play one of these guys. Carmageddon was a smash hit on the PC and a logical conclusion was bringing it to consoles. Unfortunately the rights ended up with Titus, so the end result was a muddy, censored mess which barely resembled the original.

Crystalis is one of, if not the most popular pre-Neo Geo game developed by SNK. It’s a pretty damn solid action-RPG for the NES, sharing a bit in common with Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda. Crystalis is also remembered for being quite heavily censored for its outside-Japan release: heck, the original title was God Slayer.

Sunsoft got their hands on the license to develop Batman games based on the smash hit 1989 movie. While the NES game is the one most remember, the Mega Drive one was no slouch either. I’ll go on the record as saying the soundtrack is vastly underrated, too.

Mad City is the Japanese incarnation of the game we know as The Adventures of Bayou Billy, one of Konami’s lesser NES efforts. Whereas Bayou Billy was bullshit hard, Mad City is far more reasonable – it’s still not that good though.

Sonic Adventure marked the long awaited return of Sega’s mascot and the franchise’s first foray into full 3D. Widely praised at the time, and one of the most successful games on the Dreamcast, critics have been less friendly to the game over time, given that it was the first game to introduce a large number of playable characters who weren’t Sonic.

Today marks 14 years since the Dreamcast launched in North America. The 9.9.99 release date is one that will stick with Sega fans forever – it was a pretty damn magical day. The Dreamcast launch was more successful than many had believed, even with a really hot showing at E3 1999. We all know how the story ends, but it’s nice to remember the times when the Dreamcast was on fire.

Blue Stinger is quite an oddball survival horror game that was released as part of the Dreamcast launch lineup in North America and Europe. Originally released by Sega in Japan, it was picked up by Activision for its western release. Said non-Japanese release changed the game’s camera to a more standard 3rd person camera, which some felt removed some of the dramatic tension of the original version.

Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands have been released on just about every platform around. This particular ad was for the PC, PlayStation and Saturn release in 1996. This release is infamous for outing the fact that Taito had lost the original source code for Bubble Bobble – developer Probe was sent an original PCB and had to piece the game together from that.

After Burner was a smash hit in the arcades, prompting Sega to license and/or port it to every format under the sun. This flyer is from the release of the Mark III/Sega Master System version. While technically deficient, the SMS version of the game does have some rather neat boss fights.