Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (1993 Sega Genesis):

Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (1993 Sega Genesis):

“The Mega Drive/Genesis version, titled Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition and released as Street Fighter II Dash Plus (stylized as Street Fighter II′ Plus) in Japan, was released on September 27, 1993 in North America, September 28, 1993 in Japan, and October 29, 1993 in Europe. It is the first of two Street Fighter II versions for the console and is in a 24 megabit cartridge. A six-button control pad was made primarily for it.” -Wikipedia

Ok, so, the classic experience of Street Fighter II for me was always on the Super Nintendo. I wanted to try something different. So, I went for Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition on Sega Genesis. Well, right off the bat, you can tell things are compressed down. The graphics are a bit smaller. The sound palette is a bit more “farty”. I mean, you'll get blips and squeals where some music and sound effects cut out.

Other than that, the name of the game here is speed. Just like in Street Fighter II Turbo, it introduces a speed mechanic which can be toggled up or down in the main menu. It's called hyper here, instead of turbo. I ran a basic E. Honda play-through, because his moves are easy for me to do. Anyone can press punch fast. It was ok, other than the farty sound palette.

This was right before my favorite game in the series. Just a year later, Street Fighter II: The New Challengers would release. In Champion Edition, you do get to play as the 4 bosses. Sagat, Balrog, Vega, and M. Bison are all available. They didn't introduce Cammy, T. Hawk, Deejay, or Fei Long until 1994.

Overall, they're some good ideas were here. I just prefer the Super Nintendo experience. Although, I get that they were going mostly for speed. The playable bosses are nice. But, knowing that The New Challengers would include both them and new fighters makes the game feel a little limited. I'll bet it was good for its time. In my opinion, you can probably skip this one and play either Street Fighter II Turbo or Street Fighter II: The New Challengers.

Pirates! Gold (1993 Sega Genesis):

Pirates! Gold (1993 Sega Genesis):

“The player can play as a pirate, privateer, or a pirate hunter. It features sword fighting, ocean-faring battles, and land battles as its three main arenas of action, connected by role-playing which allows the player to court the favor of local politicos, romance women, and recruit pirates in the local pub.”

-Wikipedia

Pirates! Gold is an amazing game. It's a pirate sim, complete with different ships, towns, treasures, quests, and abilities as you sail the Spanish Main in the 17th century. First you choose your “captain”. This is the player. You can choose what ability you have, you can change your name, (Sidney is the default name.) and your nationality: English, Dutch, Spanish, or French.

Your abilities are fencing, charm, gunnery, or navigation. You only choose one. Fencing makes your sword strength better. Charm lets you get married more easily. Gunnery makes your cannons more effective. Navigation can help you weather storms and not crash on reefs. (And that happens a lot.)

Well, once you've started, you can sail around and attack ships or towns, capturing and plundering, or you can hunt for treasure. You can gain letters of marque to fight on behalf of any of the 4 European nations. So, when you capture enemy ships or towns, you can do so in the name of England, or whoever. This is usually the way I play. It's just too fun.

But, you have to keep your crew happy and well-fed or else they can desert and mutiny. Things that make them happy are like successful attacks or appropriate ship size vs. crew size. (You can capture a large variety of ships, including Galleons, Frigates, Sloops, or Merchant Ships, among others.) Of course, finding treasure makes them happy. You can buy treasure maps at local taverns throughout the Caribbean, sometimes.

Press “C” in sailing mode to check out all your maps, and figure out wherever the heck you are in the Spanish Main. You can also pinpoint places on the Spanish Main map. Often, you'll run into other ships you can choose to engage in combat or sail away. Once in sea combat, you can try to sink enemy ships or capture them. You can also fence the enemy captain by crashing your ship into theirs and boarding.

Other than attacking towns and sinking or capturing ships, you can complete quests too. These include capturing another pirate, getting married, finding lost cities, robbing treasure fleets, finding treasure, or finding each one of the members of your captain's long-lost family. Completing each one of these effects your score at the end when you divide up all your gold. Every game is different.

Some endings are more spectacular than others. If you have a lot of gold, and complete a lot of missions, you can ultimately become a pirate governor or King's Advisor if you do really good. Others include Rich Banker, Rogue, Fleet Admiral or even Beggar or Pauper, if you do really bad. Since I don't do a lot of missions, I usually end up more on the bad side. But, it's more fun to me just to sail around and attack things, rather than figure out where such-and-such lost city is from unmarked maps.

My usually bad final scores aside, Pirates! Gold is an still an amazing game. It looks and sounds great. Frankly, I'm surprised it runs on a Genesis cartridge. If you have access to a virtual Sega Genesis (or Sega Megadrive as the Genesis is known in Europe.), or even a physical cartridge, give it a try today. You won't regret it! I can play this game all day still.

Ninja Scroll (1993):

Ninja Scroll (1993):

Ninja Scroll is about Jubei, a ronin who just wants to be left alone after finding out his old friend Lord Genma, has become the Dark Shogun, leader of the Eight Devils of Kimon. All that changes after a government spy named Dakuwan poisons him with a ninja star, forcing him to go on a quest to defeat the Eight Devils to receive the antidote.

This is just good anime fun. Plenty of gore, sketchy content, and an anti-hero protagonist with a “devil-may-care” loner attitude. This is the anime that showed me what anime was all about. Back when the only other anime I'd caught on TV where Sailor Moon and DBZ, though I knew a little bit about Street Fighter and videogames.

Speaking of videogames, each fight here with a Devil is structured like a videogame boss fight, but there are no incessant power-ups like DBZ or Sailor Moon. Just each Devil with a specific power, and weakness. There's a rock guy, a guy with bees, an exploding lady, a blind samurai, a snake lady, a guy with an electric cord, and Genma among others. He simply has to find a weakness in each, and defeat them.

Along the way, Jubei meets up with Kagero, a Kuga clan ninja girl with poison in her body. She helps Jubei after being attacked by one of the Devils. She has a unique ability to poison whoever she “gives her body” to. So, that's an exciting use of her ability. She also has ninja abilities like magic blossoms she can summon.

Overall, Ninja Scroll is edgy, exciting, and fast-paced. Each fight is well-structured, bloody, and awesome. The visuals are great, and the hero is a smarmy anti-hero who isn't on your typical shonen power-up quest. He just wants peace, nothing phases him. He's a chill guy, which makes the battles more exciting. If you have a chance, check it out. It's a must-watch anime!

Liberty or Death (1993 SNES):

It's an American Revolutionary War Strategy Game! Well, Calling Liberty or Death a strategy game is a bit generous. It's much more a resource management game with a historical framework. Every move you make takes a certain resource, whether its food, gunpowder, or troops. The battle system is really limited. You move one square at a time, and troops need to be right next to each other to attack. For this reason, it doesn't hold up. I always wanted to like this game more than I actually do.

It's quite literally just whoever has the most things wins. For a historical game, I understand this. It puts the pressure on the players to launch quick and smart attacks, but the one move at a time mechanic really limits your paths to victory. For the British, you want to use your Navy to quickly cut off America from Europe, and capture Philadelphia, or the American General. (Washington)

Now, if you're the Americans, you want to seize Boston to cut off the English Navy immediately, and send delegates to Europe to gain support and allies. Just like Washington did. You can also capture the English General. (Cornwallis.) If you can gain enough support/denial for American independence by running newspapers and delegates to states, they can switch sides from the British to the American army or vice versa.

The resource management and delegate processes can actually be pretty fun, and it's always satisfying to gain support from such-and-such new state. However, the battle system is just tedious and not fun, when it should be the focus of the game, because you'll be doing it a lot. Like I said, everything moves one square, and everything has to be close up to attack. Even the guns. Add to this that you need to manage each resource before battle (Troops run out of food and powder.) and it makes the gameplay very dull...you'll have to use bayonets if you run out of powder, or the battle just ends if you don't have enough food.

In spite of this, I just thought I'd write about this weird historical strategy game because it had so much promise. Some of the resource management is fun! It's always fun to get new troops or new support. But, the part that should be fun, battling, isn't. If you don't end the game before 1800, the game ends with British victory automatically, and Thomas Gage becomes Lord Governor of the 13 Colonies. It's a shame then, that America only has a small path to victory. It's historical, but that also means it's limited.

Surprisingly, I thought the strongest point of the game was also it's biggest weakness...the music. The same 1-minute battle ditty plays on loop for every battle, which gets annoying when you're moving square by square. Now, during the resource management phases you get rousing midis with flute noises and drums, and even “The Star-Spangled Banner". An upbeat continenntal theme which calls America “The Land of Liberty and Justice” plays in the event of an American Victory.

Overall, “Liberty or Death” is a nice educational resource management game. There's sort of an idea of a strategy game there, but it falls flat and the most exciting parts quickly become the most tedious. I'd say unless you really like historical tactics games, you're better off skipping this one. It has some cool ideas though, as sort of a historical “what if?”. Unfortunately, as much as I want to wonder “What if the Spanish had helped American independence instead of France?” I just keep wondering “What if this game were more exciting?”

Demolition Man (1993):

Demolition Man (1993):

“A police officer is brought out of suspended animation in prison to pursue an old ultra-violent nemesis who is loose in a non-violent future society.”

Sylvester Stallone plays John Spartan, a hard-nosed cop who pursues Simon Phoenix, a crazy criminal. Now, after he burns down part of a crime-ridden LA, he and Phoenix end up in a non-violent future after being frozen. This leads to some pretty funny scenes. For example, the police can't apprehend Phoenix, and don't know what to do after he responds with an aggressive remark.

But also, John Spartan can't adjust to the future world, either. Swearing is outlawed, and he racks up fines for each curse word. He doesn't know that all restaurants are now Taco Bell, or that people wipe themselves with seashells now instead of toilet paper, so he has to use the curse fines as toilet paper. Sandra Bullock as Lenina Huxley helps him adjust to the future, but she keeps getting old expressions wrong. (i.e. “blow this guy” instead of blow him away.) That's all pretty funny.

Apart from the absurdist comedy of an action hero stuck in a pacified future, there's also some great action scenes. Phoenix kills a bunch of guards and museum goers after getting guns from a firearm exhibit. He and Spartan have a good shootout in the museum. Then, in a nod maybe to Terminator killing T-1000, Phoenix later shatters into pieces after being trapped by dry ice in a factory.

But, it turns out that Phoenix himself wasn't operating alone. He was being hypnotized by Dr. Cocteau, the founder of this supposed utopia. He was using him to assassinate Edgar Friendly (Dennis Leary), a rebel leader who lives underground and rejects society's rules. In this way, the film also touches on some social issues, such as censorship, just use of power, and the role of violence in peacekeeping. It's influenced by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Overall, I'd recommend the film to anyone who likes sci-fi, absurdist comedy, and/or good action movies. I enjoyed it. Give it a watch on Hulu, if you get a chance. On the surface, it's a good shoot-em-up. But, it isn't afraid to make you laugh, or think. Truly, a modern sci-fi classic with a unique blend of comedy, action, and philosophy.

Coneheads (1993):

Coneheads (1993):

“Aliens with conical crania crash-land on Earth.”

Well, Coneheads was free on Hulu. I figured if there's ever a comedy about seeing through alien eyes, this is it. Beldar and Prymaat come from planet Remulak to conquer Earth, but end up staying as “illegal aliens” after a malfunction. A lot of the humor comes from the way they talk so scientifically. For example, “re-numerating with metallic tender discs.” for “paying in change”; or “consumption of mass quantities” for eating.

Beldar and Prymaat slowly adapt to American life despite being aliens. Beldar is a hard worker, and can succeed at almost any job because his cone or body can interact with machinery. Meanwhile, he has the government chasing him and his family down. Beldar's child, Connie Conehead, was born in America and quickly falls in love with a car mechanic (Chris Farley!) because she can describe in detail all the equipment in his shop! Yes, Connie has normal teen problems and fights with her parents, but is still an alien!

Eventually, Beldar's ship returns for him. But, Connie convinces him to stay in America, because they have a good life. They may look funny and talk strangely, but they are good people once they stop being chased around. It's a great comedy, if you have time. Direct your ocular sensors upon it! (Give it a watch!)

Robocop 3 (1993):

Robocop 3 (1993):

"Robocop saves the day once more. This time the half man/half robot takes on ruthless developers who want to evict some people on "their" land."

The first one without Peter Weller. Still pretty good. Good action. I thought parts were funny. Like Robocop with a jetpack. Also uses a flamethrower and shoots up punks at the end. Leans into the goofiness, but doesn't mess around.