Developed by Sega Technical Institute and released for the Megadrive/Genesis in 1993, Sonic Spinball is a pinball game featuring Sega‘s famous mascot.
The game took some criticism upon release, although I think it’s a very good game that is still fun to play now. If I had any criticisms it would be that the game is quite hard – at least getting to the later stages – but overall has a satisfying feel to it.
Released in 1992, one year after the classic Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2‘s big contribution to the series was the introduction of two-player games of Sonic. It was also a Japanese/American co-production this time, by Sega Technical Institute.
When Sega bigwigs asked their talented designers to create a video game character that would become the company mascot, the designers rubbed their chins for a while, then came up with a blue hedgehog, called Sonic.
In fact, the designers were so enamoured with their new creation that they changed their name to Sonic Team as they developed the game.
This week I’m going to be featuring all the early Sonic the Hedgehog games on the blog.
They’re all Megadrive/Genesis games, except for one on the Sega CD. And they’re all classics, and deserve a set of grabs, showing just how colourful the games are. And, of course, a few words about what makes them good.
Developed by Namco and released into arcades in 1984, Pac-Land is a departure for the Pac-Man series because this time it’s a platform game. And a pretty good one at that.
Manufactured by Bally Midway in 1983, Jr. Pac-Man is another sequel to the smash hit, dot-eating maze game, Pac-Man, created by Namco in 1980.
Unlike Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man was developed by Namco themselves in 1982, so could be considered the first ‘official’ sequel to Pac-Man.
The fact is: it is arguably inferior to both the aforementioned Midway Pac-Man games, which is a little embarrassing. That said: it is still a decent game in its own right; maybe not quite as ‘pure’ or ‘hardcore’ as Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, but good nonetheless.
Another American Bally Midway variation of Namco‘s Pac-Man, shipped out into arcades in 1982 to take advantage of the PM craze sweeping the globe.
The 1982 sequel to the smash hit Pac-Man originally started out as a third party modification kit for Pac-Man machines, developed by General Computer Corporation, and called ‘Crazy Otto‘.
After legal action from Atari, GCC was forced to present Crazy Otto to Midway, the North American distributor of Pac-Man, who bought the game and developed it into Ms. Pac-Man.
Further complicating the story, apparently Midway did this without Pac-Man‘s original owner Namco‘s consent, which caused some licensing issues later. The truth is by no means clear, but in the murky world of video game licensing it is sometimes the case that people sell and exploit rights to products they have no right to.
Developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts in 2009, Dragon Age: Origins is a hardcore, third-person Role-Playing Game in the style of Knights of the Old Republic (also developed by BioWare), Vampire: the Masquerade – Redemption, and Neverwinter Nights.
