Gaming Zone

Developer:

Alexandria

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Release Date:

1995

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Systems:

Mega Drive/Genesis, Mega CD, SNES

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This week on Super Adventures I'm taking a quick look at another movie tie-in! I hope it's better than that Stargate platformer I played a while ago. Though it will be a platformer, there's no doubt of that.

Demolition Man is a apparently one of just three games developed by Alexandria before they vanished in late 1995, with the others being Sylvester and Tweety in Cagey Capers... and Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings, which I wrote about way back in the days when I didn't write much. In fact I kind of sucked and so did that game.

Speaking of 1995, that's also the year that the game was released, which is pretty late for a 16-bit console game, especially one that's based on a 1993 movie. They weren't exactly striking when the iron was hot there. In fact if it'd come out any later then the dystopian future levels would actually be set in the past.

By the way I'm playing the Mega Drive/SNES Demolition Man not the 3DO game, which is one of those variety pack licensed film tie-ins that keep switching genre and are invariably terrible. Though it does have the genuine movie soundtrack and includes FMV clips of Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Jesse Ventura filmed exclusively for the game! The Mega Drive and SNES versions, on the other hand, don't. But what they do have is a title that literally explodes onto the screen letter by letter in little bursts of flame before a synthy guitar riff plays, and that's cool too.
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Developer:

Probe/Tantalus

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Release Date:

1995

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Systems:

SNES, Mega Drive/Genesis

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This week on Super Adventures I'm still celebrating Star Trek's 50th anniversary by playing games that have some vague connection to the series. This one's got 'Star' in the title, it's set on another planet, and it's based on a long running movie/TV franchise, so it's ticking lots of boxes. In fact the 'Stargate' TV spin-offs were often the closest you can get to proper 'Star Trek' without getting sued by both CBS and Paramount.

But Stargate the game is an adaptation of the original 1994 movie that kicked the franchise off, released a year after the film for Super Nintendo and Genesis/Mega Drive consoles. That's the SNES title screen you're looking at up there, with its narrow resolution and extra colours, but I'll be getting around to the the Sega version as well eventually.

'Stargate' isn't a particularly great film, but it cheats by having an iconic theme by Bond composer David Arnold powerful enough to make scenes of extras walking across a desert outside of Yuma, Arizona feel like the most epic sci-fi adventure since 'Return of the Jedi'... which used the place for Tatooine now that I think about it. Anyway, if there's one thing that absolutely works about that movie it's the music, so of course the game drops it entirely, replacing it with a title theme that sounds like it's been borrowed from an Amiga game. It's not all that bad though really, here have a YouTube link if you're curious.

There'll be movie SPOILERS below this point, so stop reading here unless you've seen it or don't care.
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Developer:

Sega Technical Institute

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Release Date:

1995

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Systems:

Genesis/Mega Drive, GBA, Windows

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing a game that was requested roughly... I'm guessing four years ago. I got to it eventually, that's the important thing.

I don't know why I've been putting off playing Comix Zone for so long, but I'm thinking the fact that it's bastard hard might have something to do with it. I didn't want to start it up, get my ass kicked, and quit on the first level. Not for this game, it's far too pretty for that.

The game was ported across to systems like PC and GBA, then later emulated on others, but it's mainly known as being Mega Drive/Genesis game released towards the end of its days. The concept actually came from an Amiga demo video from 1992 called "Joe Pencil Trapped in the Comix Zone", but Amiga owners never got to play the final game! An Amiga version would've bombed in '95 though, and the Mega Drive didn't exactly rake in the cash either. I guess it was just bad timing, releasing such a two dimensional game at the point where everyone was going crazy over polygons.

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Developer:

EA

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Release Date:

1993 (Amiga)

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Systems:

Genesis/Mega Drive, Amiga, DOS, Master System, Lynx, Game Gear, Game Boy, SNES, GBA, PSP

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Today on Super Adventures I'm having a look at Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf, the first of EA's legendary Strike series and at the time their biggest selling game ever, beating titles like Road Rage, John Madden Football and, uh, Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble.

The subtitle's always made it sound like a sequel to me, but the game came out just a year after coalition forces liberated Kuwait from Iraq during the Persian Gulf War and it's actually following on from that. The problems in the Middle East had gotten a lot of news coverage at the time (if you can imagine that), so it was inevitable that a few fictional Saddam Hussain lookalikes would pop up in video games and start threatening the world.

Desert Strike was originally released on the Sega Genesis AKA. the Mega Drive but I'll be playing through the first level of the Amiga port instead because of its improved sound and enhanced visuals. You can see right now how they've enhanced the title screen with a digitised photo featuring trees (but then tinted them brown so we wouldn't notice.)

I can't exactly show the sound but I suppose I could link to a YouTube video of the Amiga title theme. It's almost but not quite entirely different to the rock theme the game has in most other versions: YouTube link of the Mega Drive theme, but I think we win either way.
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Developer:

Core Design

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Release Date:

1995

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Systems:

Mega Drive/Genesis, Amiga (AGA), CD32

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Today on Super Adventures I'm having a look at Skeleton Krew, which is something I vaguely remember playing off an Amiga demo disk! Apparently I subconsciously set an alarm in my head to go off exactly 20 years later, because I woke up today with a sudden inexplicable urge to see what the full game's like.

This is one of the final 16-bit games released by legendary UK developer Core Design before they embraced the PlayStation and Saturn and let Tomb Raider consume them. It's definitely the last game they made for Amigas, possibly the second last for the Mega Drive and Genesis, and it seems like they got bored of making SNES games way back in 1992 so it didn't even make it near Nintendo's system.

I'll be playing the Sega version of the game because I have a feeling it came first and will give me the better experience. Plus I've only put one other Mega Drive game on the site so far this year and that's kind of shameful.
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Developer:

Disney Interactive

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Release Date:

1995

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Systems:

Genesis

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm taking a look at Genesis/Mega Drive platformer Gargoyles, because everyone keeps asking me to. Apparently it's got some fans. Actually thinking about it, this is really just a Genesis game, as it was only released in the US and never made it to the Mega Drive regions.

It's based on the Disney cartoon of the same name that started in 1994, which ran for three seasons but somehow passed me by every time. I only caught the one episode and I don't remember it, so my knowledge of it is kind of limited. I do remember that it stars Keith David and half the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation... but that's entirely irrelevant as it's a 16-bit cartridge platformer so I'm likely to get 4 words of dialogue out of this at best.

Well I'm only assuming it's a platformer to be honest, I haven't actually checked, but it's an early-mid 90s cartoon tie-in so what else is it going to be? Look on my Game Series page, click 'Disney' and see how many of them aren't platformers. And that ain't because I've been deliberately avoiding all the 'Animaniacs' first person shooters.
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