E.V.O.: Search for Eden is one of the most unique games on the SNES – a platformer/role playing game where your creature evolves to cope with changes to the environment. The game takes place over the course of a billion years, with the player starting out as just a fish. The unique concept of the game combined with a relatively small print run has made it into one of the most sought after SNES games.
Skitchin’ is one of my favourite games on the Mega Drive. It’s technically quite similar to Road Rash (although the team behind the game mostly worked on NHL games), but players are racing on rollerblades and using traffic to hitch a lift (or skitch) and propel themselves towards the finish line. Like Road Rash, races get quite violent as you attempt to take out your fellow competitors with an assortment of weapons.
Golden Axe II is the direct sequel to the Mega Drive version of Golden Axe. It does not stray far at all from the original game, retaining the same characters and basic gameplay – one could accuse the game of being more of an expansion than a real sequel.
Castlevania: Vampire’s Kiss is a retelling of the PC Engine CD game Akumajou Dracula X: Chi no Rondo, where Richter Belmont ventures into the castle to rescue his girlfriend Annette, who has been kidnapped by the Dark Priest Shaft, a servant of the castle’s master, Dracula. Despite being considered to be inferior in every way to the original, Vampire’s Kiss now commands a ridiculous price on the secondary market.
With the Sochi Winter Olympics starting tonight, I thought we’d feature the weirdest game associated with the Olympics – Izzy’s Quest for the Olympic Rings. The platformer stars the mascot of the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, Whatizit, better known as Izzy. Unfortunately, the game isn’t particularly notable and the character is considered one of the worst Olympic mascots.
The Ocean published Jurassic Park games are completely different to the Sega games, with the focus on exploration and objective based isometric gameplay. There are even some first person sections in the SNES and PC versions for the indoor segments.
The Jurassic Park video game license was not exclusively granted to one publisher – Ocean gained the rights to do games for computers and Nintendo consoles while Sega had the rights for games for their own consoles and the arcades. The Mega Drive/Genesis game was developed by BlueSky Software on a relatively tight schedule, so it’s a bit janky, but playing as the raptor is mildly entertaining.
Mario Kart 64 marks the second kart outing for the heroes and villains of the Mushroom Kingdom. New characters, bigger tracks and more players are the best features of the game, but one can’t help but feel that the Mario Kart lost a bit of charm on the way to the Nintendo 64.
WCW made its video game debut in 1990, and it was pretty damn mediocre. Just like the product at the time.
Fatal Fury was one of the early successful fighters that came out in the wake of Street Fighter II. In fact, it was actually designed by the creator of Street Fighter. The SNES version isn’t as good as the Neo Geo original, but it captures most of the spirit of the game.
