A week ago, one of the members of my favorite gaming forum,
Talking Time, started a thread dedicated to the Sega Genesis. You could imagine my excitement, as the
Genesis was my preferred console by a wide margin in the early 1990s, and
Talking Time hasn’t always shown it the love I feel it deserves. (Yes, yes, I know about GameSpite's all-Sega book! It only took Parish
twelve volumes to make one! But erm, I
digress.)
It didn’t take long
before the subject turned to the early days of the Genesis, when Nintendo still
held the industry in a vice grip and most publishers were too frightened to
make games for anyone else. At first,
Sega got by with its own stable of arcade conversions, as well as a handful of
hot properties on loan from Capcom and Data East. However, after the Genesis crushed the
Turbografx-16 and Nintendo’s industry monopoly started to erode, it wasn’t as
tough for Sega to convince outside developers to give their system a chance.
The discussion reminded me of an advertisement from a video
game magazine, which crowed about the support Sega was getting from third
parties. I couldn’t remember what
magazine it was specifically, so I dug through my collection until I found the
ad hidden near the back of EGM’s 1991 Video Game Buyer’s Guide. Here it is now in all its weather-worn, “I
should have been keeping this in a Mylar bag instead of a dusty cardboard box in a dilapidated barn”
glory…
Let’s ignore the massive Sega seal of quality for a second (oh
my god, it’s coming right at us!) and
concentrate on the list of licensees instead.
You’ll recognize some of these names right away, while others will be
tougher- if not impossible- to place.
What the hell is Sage’s Creation?
Kyugo Trading who now? Dreamworks… weren’t those the Shrek guys?
The dust settled on the 16-bit console wars a long time ago,
but just for fun, let’s find out a little more about each of the companies on
this list, and where they are now. As an
added bonus, I’ll review each of the games pictured in the advertisement. It’s a lot to sift through, so we’ll split
this up into three chapters, starting with…
TRECO
Many of the companies in this advertisement went out of
business, and Treco was no different.
Here’s the delicious twist, though… Treco was the short-lived video game
division of Sammy, the maker of pachinko machines and other gambling
devices. After Sega’s misfortunes with
the 32X, and the Saturn, and the Dreamcast, and one too many crummy Sonic
games, the company was forced into a merger to stay solvent. Now Sega is the video game division of Sammy!
But yes, back to Treco.
The company floundered about for a couple of years, publishing some of
the most forgettable games on the Genesis, until Sammy realized that it could
bloody well make its own software and
put the label out of its misery. The
first major game credited to Sammy was Viewpoint, released for the Neo-Geo in
1992, so one has to assume that Treco was taken out to the backyard and shot
the same year. Speaking of Viewpoint,
it’s worth mentioning that 1. Its developers went on to become Blazing Star
creators Yumekobo, and 2. There was a Genesis version of Viewpoint published by
Sammy a couple of years after its Neo-Geo debut. It wasn’t a great port, but you gotta give
‘em credit for having the chutzpah to attempt it!
 |
| Man, I thought those things were extinct! |
All right, all right… back to Treco again. Their first game for the Genesis was Atomic
Robo-Kid, a supremely quirky side-scrolling shooter starring a well-armed
garbage can. Originally designed by
Universal Playland, ARK proudly flaunts the company’s exquisitely odd art style. Everything’s chrome plated and absolutely
nothing is aerodynamic; a galaxy apart from the dozens of other shooters on the
Genesis. There’s no forced scrolling
either, letting you explore each stage at your leisure. Well, until the swarms of space nautili and floating
cannons close in on you, anyway.
NUVISION
Who, or what, was NuVision Entertainment? It’s a mystery that has plagued absolutely
nobody for over twenty years. The
company released a single game for the Sega Genesis, Bimini Run, and vanished
into the night, never to be heard from again.
Genesis owners responded by shrugging their shoulders and moving on with
their lives.
For just a second, let’s pretend someone cared. What was NuVision Entertainment, and where
did it go? According to an interview on
the Game Developers Research Institute, NuVision was founded
by a couple of Parker Bros. employees who weren’t satisfied with the company’s
timid approach to the video game industry.
NuVision hoped to establish itself as a hot new game publisher on the
Sega Genesis, only to run out of investment capital before the company could
find an audience. Three more games were
planned by NuVision, including Bean Ball Benny (described by developer Charlie
Heath as Keystone Kapers for a new generation of gamers), Swamp Thing, and The
Guardian Angels, based on the controversial (and frankly, kind of scary)
neighborhood watch group. Two of these
titles are covered in more detail on Unseen64, that online museum of lost
gaming treasures.
 |
| "It's Knight Boat... the CRIME SOLVING boat!" |
The only NuVision title to see the light of day, Bimini Run,
was a mission-based action game with a Miami Vice flavor. As the fabulous and mostly naked Kenji Ohara,
you’ll race your speedboat to the lair of Dr. Orca, blasting the black
helicopters that ominously loom overhead and taking out the not-so-good
doctor’s radar dishes along the way.
Bimini Run is more complex than the lion’s share of Genesis games
available at the time, and the 3D that’s usually a sticking point for the
Genesis is unexpectedly pleasant here, with shimmering waves lapping against
your boat. On the other hand, Dr. Orca’s
men have an uncanny aim, and one hit is all it takes to sink your ship. You’ll also quickly grow to hate the police
chief, who constantly interrupts the action with his cries of “Kenji, come
in!” Bitch, do you know what I did to
Otis?
RENOVATION
Renovation was one of the most active publishers on the Sega
Genesis during the system’s first shaky years.
If Sega’s selection of arcade megahits wasn’t enough to convince
disillusioned NES owners to buy a Genesis, Renovation’s equally eye-popping but
more console-friendly software was that extra nudge that made them take the
plunge. Renovation also brought welcome
diversity to the Genesis library, giving gamers everything from lengthy
role-playing titles (Arcus Odyssey, Ys III: Wanderers from Ys) to viciously
tough shooters (Gaiares, Sol-Deace) to games that defy easy classification
(Granada, a search and destroy mission inside a futuristic tank).
Renovation lasted long enough to make a handful of games for
the Sega CD, and even spread the love to the Super NES with a couple of titles. Sega wasn’t thrilled with one of its most
valuable allies migrating to the competition, and put an end to the threat by
purchasing the company outright. Later Renovation
games planned for the Super NES, like a conversion of Arcus Odyssey and the
disturbing Dream Probe, were denied a passport to the United States, and the
brand name was retired. Strangely,
Renovation’s parent company, Telenet Japan, remained independent until
2007. After its passing, the rights to
its games were sold to Sunsoft. (Yes, it
still exists. No, I can’t believe it
either.) Wolf Team, the development
house that made most of Renovation’s games, went on to create the Tales of…
series, and is currently festering in the bowels of Namco Bandai.
 |
| Whip it! Whip it... adequately. |
Well, that was fun!
Now let’s take a look at the game pictured in the advertisement. Whip Rush, alas, isn’t one of Renovation’s
better titles… it’s a side-scrolling shooter that gives you the distinct
impression that it fell from the backside of a factory assembly line. Your bulbous ship has access to three
different weapons, as well as two sidecars which can be rotated into place or
spastically bounced at enemies. Get hit
while you’re carrying a weapon and you’ll lose it; get hit without one and your
tiny craft blows up. This happens
disconcertingly often when you’re underwater and the ship slows to a
crawl. Whip Rush was probably impressive
in 1990 (have you seen what passes
for a shooter on the NES?), but it was instantly outclassed by later Genesis
titles like Gaiares, Sagaia, and the way creepy, way underappreciated Bio-Hazard
Battle.
KYUGO TRADING CO.
Oh man, where do I even begin with this one? Kyugo Trading Co., Ltd. is a cryptid among
Sega Genesis licensees. There have been
plenty of sightings- usually in the previews section of old EGM issues- but little
proof of its existence. After releasing
just one game in the United States, Kyugo Trading slipped back into the forest
to become the stuff of legends. To this
day, people still speak of the mysterious Kyugo while huddled around the
campfire, after they’ve run out of more interesting tales to tell.
I honestly believed that Cross Fire hadn’t even been
released in the United States, until I looked for the game on eBay. It’s definitely there, albeit in limited
quantities, proving once and for all that Kyugo had lived up to its promise to
deliver at least one Sega Genesis game to America. I also did a little hunting on GameFAQs and
discovered that Kyugo published exactly six games worldwide, including the
Japanese version of the charmingly hapless Wrath of the Black Manta and Airwolf
for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Kyugo was last seen lurking in Japanese arcades, leaving behind
high-tech photo booths with enticing names like Love Love Simulation.
 |
| Good lord Higgins, it looks like you've been hit with the ugly FOREST. |
You’ll recall that Air Wolf was mentioned earlier. This is important, because Cross Fire is actually
the sequel to that game with the license stripped out. It’s a shame too, because the theme song from
the television show sounds pretty snazzy on the Genesis! With or without the license, you get a
(barely) passable shooter with three styles of gameplay. The first is a standard vertically scrolling
shoot ‘em up that gives you three bombs and a special “turbo” ability that lets
you crash into all the enemy jets you want for a few seconds. The second offers a zoomed in view of your
helicopter as it lays waste to helpless soldiers and ground targets. The third has the pilot stepping out of the
chopper for a little run ‘n gun combat in the style of Commando, except you can
hang in mid-air briefly to fire at cannons you couldn’t otherwise reach. It all feels a little off, which is why I’d
recommend you scratch that itch for military combat with Fire Shark and MERCS
instead.
INTV CORPORATION
If the name sounds familiar, it should! Intv Corporation was founded by the brains
behind the Intellivision game system.
They split from Mattel after the crash of 1983, purchased the rights to
the console for a song, and revived it to compete with the red hot NES in the
late 1980s. However, the very dated
Intellivision with its very blocky graphics couldn’t take the company into the
1990s, so Intv signed up as a licensee for the considerably more advanced Sega
Genesis.
Intv Corporation’s first Genesis release would have been
Curse, but alas, Intv was forced into bankruptcy before the game could reach
store shelves. However, there’s a happy
ending to this story! The masterminds
behind the Intellivision are still in the video game business, operating as
Realtime Associates and Intellivision Productions. Realtime produced a Genesis game for
Electronic Arts, Normy’s Beach Babe-O-Rama, bringing a weird sense of closure
to the planned partnership between two of gaming history’s most famous second
bananas.
 |
| Curse... where half the challenge is finding your ship in the background! |
In retrospect, maybe it was for the best that Intv
Corporation went out of business before Curse was released. The game would have been a stain on its
legacy; an ugly, jumbled mess that betrays the developers’ total lack of
experience with the Genesis hardware. If
it tells you anything, Curse was programmed by Micronet, another early Genesis
licensee, and even they wanted
nothing to do with it, bringing Junction and Heavy Nova to the United States
instead. JUNCTION. And HEAVY NOVA. You know
a game is cack when Heavy Nova sounds like the better option in a
comparison. To put it another way, pick
any Genesis shooter. That shooter is
better than Curse. So are the next ten
you were going to mention. Hell, Mike
Ditka’s Power Football is a better shooter than Curse.
KANEKO
Kaneko’s one of those lesser known Japanese developers that seemed
to come from nowhere, but has actually been around a lot longer than you’d
think. Like BioWare, it was originally
in the medical business, but segued into video games in the early 1980s,
creating arcade titles for Taito. Few of
those games reached the United States, and barely any were ported to a home
console… Red Clash for the dreadful Emerson Arcadia 2001 is the only one that
comes to mind.
 |
| "Quick, make the unflattering racial stereotype purple! There, now no one will ever know..." |
TO BE CONTINUED...
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