Retro Gaming Australia

Half of Sega’s best 16-bit game.

Originally set for release for Holiday 1993, Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 proved too ambitious for the company – the size of the cartridge was going to make the game’s manufacturing super expensive, and the rapidly expanding size and scope of the game was likely to make it miss its scheduled release. So they split the game in two – Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for early 1994, and Sonic & Knuckles for late 1994.

One of the scant handful of the Jaguar’s must-haves.

The Jaguar version of Alien vs. Predator was the first video game based on the popular crossover series. It’s a tense corridor shooter, borrowing a lot from other shooters available at the time, but adding a thick layer of atmosphere from the Alien movies.

Still have a soft spot for the void levels.

Super Mario Sunshine is perhaps Mario’s most divisive adventure to date. Some will argue that it wasn’t enough of a step up from Super Mario 64, others will claim that it was too radical a departure mechanically. There are a scant few of us who enjoyed it for what it is.

Be glad Enix got over the whole CG thing. Ghastly box art.

Dragon Warrior I & II is another remake of…you guessed it. Of course, if you actually want to play this remake, you’d better start saving your pennies, because complete copies don’t come cheap.

Another Gradius side story.

Gradius Galaxies takes place between Gradius III and Gradius Gaiden, with a previously forgotten Bacterion weapon being rediscovered and the Vic Viper being sent to destroy it. Pretty standard Gradius fare, though that’s not exactly a bad thing.

Belmont’s second GB outing.

Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge is the direct sequel to Castlevania: The Adventure, and is generally one of the lower profile entries in the series, despite being quite good.

Time to make some more crazy money!

Crazy Taxi 2 changes the location to New York City, home of the crazy cab driver and adds the new “Crazy Hop” manoeuvre. It’s not exactly a content rich sequel, but it’s just as fun as the first game.

We’re back for 2012. Let’s start the year off with one of the biggest releases of the 16-bit era (and one of the most heavily promoted, too).

Mortal Kombat II for the 32X came out quite a bit later than the other versions (in part due to the system launching after their release), but boasted improved graphics and sound capabilities over the standard Mega Drive version. Still not a patch on the arcade version, but a competent port nonetheless.

CG sells, evidently.

Final Fantasy VII was the game that turned the tide of the fifth generation console war, bringing the underdog Sony to the top of the gaming market. With the game’s 15th anniversary coming up, you’d think Square-Enix would be looking at doing something special, but evidently not.

Search for Final Fantasy VII on eBay

The bitch is back!

Alien Trilogy was an early 3D era first person shooter developed by Probe Software for Acclaim. The notion of it being based on a trilogy is something of a misnomer, since the game clearly draws the majority of its inspiration from the middle chapter of the trilogy, Aliens (but then just about every first person shooter under the sun does, no?). Pretty cool at the time, but it didn’t really age well. This ad was for the slightly belated Saturn release.

Search for Alien Trilogy on eBay