Retro Gaming Australia

Ristar is a Sonic Team developed platformer that came along in the twilight years of the Mega Drive. It was positioned to be a successor to Sonic the Hedgehog, but never quite caught on. It’s interesting to note that in the original Japanese release, Ristar had two expressions – a happy one for regular level play, and a serious face for boss encounters. In order to appeal to the North American audience, Sega made the boss fight face the standard one for the Western release.

Sega’s Space Channel 5 is part of the bygone era where the company was highly experimental. I mean it’s a rhythm game where you play as a TV news reporter – not exactly the sort of thing you’re going to see on shelves this Christmas.

Can you believe it’s been 21 years since Sonic the Hedgehog came out? It’s a timeless piece of software – just as enjoyable today as it was all of those years ago. It’s one of the finest pieces of software to have come out of Sega – what I wouldn’t give to see the company pull out another industry shaker like this.

A couple of months ago we published a story confirming that Pix’n Love Publishing’s The History of Sonic would be seeing an English release in June.

After hearing little from the publisher about the release of the book over the last three weeks, we’d assumed the worst. Fortunately, it appears that Pix’N Love will be teaming up with Udon Entertainment to bring the book to a wider audience. Udon has regularly teamed up with Capcom and Sega to release localised versions of their art books, as well as publishing a long line of comics based on Capcom characters.

Unfortunately, the release date of the book has been pushed back all the way to late October. Hopefully that means that Udon will be working with Pix’n Love to ensure that the quality of translation is up to par, since that was the only weak point of the first two History of Nintendo books.

You can pre-order The History of Sonic here.

Source: GoNintendo

Sonic Pocket Adventure channels the spirit of the early Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Mega Drive and uses that for inspiration for one of the best portable Sonic games out there. Although it couldn’t save the fate of the Neo Geo Pocket Color, it did help to make the system worth owning.

The Master System Converter (or Power Base Converter for our American friends) is an accessory for the Mega Drive that lets you play Master System games on the system. Is it magic? Nope – turns out the Mega Drive is actually backwards compatible with the Master System at the hardware level – all this converter does is push on a pin that tells the Mega Drive to boot in Master System mode. It’s still pretty neat, though.

It’s a concept that sounds so stupid its awesome – they’re mercenary dinosaurs that are armed to the teeth for crying out loud. Concept alone might sell some books in the world of comics (where the series originated), but Dinosaurs for Hire is just another D grade shooter.

Sonic Blast for the Sega Game Gear is set for re-release in Europe via the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console service.

Released in 1996, Sonic Blast was the last Sonic game to appear on the handheld. Players reprise the roles of Sonic and Knuckles and are tasked with collecting five Chaos Emeralds and defeating Eggman. Sonic Blast imbues Sonic with the ability to double jump to reach higher areas.

Sonic Blast releases on June 14 in Europe, so it should be available in Australia later today.

Source: Siliconera

Sonic Shuffle is Sega’s attempt to latch onto the Mario Party craze. It an admirable effort – they even brought in Mario Party developer Hudson Soft in to assist with development – but the pace of the game is just far too slow, not to mention the insufferable load times and cheating AI.

The Sega Master System might not be the instantly recognisable icon that its main competitor, the Nintendo Entertainment System is, but it served as the introduction to video games for many players in the UK, continental Europe, Australia and Brazil. Mentioning Alex Kidd (or its malapropism, “Alex the Kid”) to anyone from one of these countries is likely to illicit the same nostalgic flash as Super Mario Bros. would from an American or Japanese fan.

For those of you who are just starting out collecting games, or missed the Master System the first time around, this feature will tell you everything you need to know about the Master System. (continue reading…)