Gen-Assist

Oh boy! It's the last post of the year! It's the last post of the DECADE! 

Before I begin, there's a Twitter post you may have already seen from Cinemassacre regular and professional coat tail surfer Mike Matei, which reads as follows:

Retweet if you agree: If you use the “rewind feature” that’s now standard on many NES and SNES games available on Switch, you DID NOT by any stretch of the imagination beat the god damn game.

First, I don't personally use rewind in games. Not because of any silly moral objection, but because it's slightly disorienting and I find myself hitting the button by accident until I turn it off completely in the options screen. However, I do use save states, loudly and proudly, and you'll have to pry those from my cold, dead hands.

See, here's the thing. I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm not as patient as I used to be either, and I don't feel a pressing urge to torture myself for hours on end just to prove my worth as a gamer. It's a video game. I don't have to prove a damn thing to it... it's there to entertain me. If save states are necessary to wring all the enjoyment I can out of a game, I'm using them. If I need an outlet for misplaced bravado, there are achievements and trophies for that.

Second, look at the balls on this Matei guy! Mr. "No Shortcuts Allowed" has been nursing from The Angry Video Game Nerd's jewel-encrusted teat for years. He's been playing his entire YouTube career on easy mode! As far as I'm concerned, my success at Punch-Out!! is exactly as legitimate as his success as an internet celebrity. My own foray into YouTube may have been met with all the enthusiasm of a school of hungry candiru, but at least I earned that failure. 

Anyway. There was something important I wanted to tell all of you. Project Lunar, the hotly anticipated hack for the Sega Genesis Mini, has arrived! Here's an installation tutorial from Restalgia if you want to try it yourself. Trust me, you do.

In way of warning, there isn't enough internal storage in the Genesis Mini to hold the entire Genesis library. A few games don't work with the M2ENGAGE emulator, and tons of games for the system are best left forgotten anyway. Why bother with Back to the Future III when you can just watch the movie? Why play Bart vs. The Space Mutants when you can just watch old episodes of The Simpsons? Why spend time with Dark Castle when you can roll around naked in a bed full of mouse traps? Eh, you get the idea. Upload only the games you want to play, and you'll be happy. If you're having trouble deciding, maybe I'll make some suggestions in a later post.

The Bestivus Awards, 2010-2019

He's trying so hard to be gracious about it.
(image from IFC)

One of the most memorable moments of the Pee-Wee Herman Christmas Special (which should still be fresh in your mind, I hope) is that everyone who visits the playhouse, from regal cow puppets to camp icons like Charro, brings Pee-Wee a fruitcake as a gift. Does he want them? Of course not, but he accepts the rock-hard pastries with all the grace of a grown man with Peter Pan syndrome and an unwillingness to use his indoor voice.

So in that grand tradition, here's another gift you've already been given at least a dozen times... a best of the decade awards list! If it makes you feel any better, this one's been written from a different perspective than the others you've already seen. Instead of lumping together games from two generations of consoles, I'm picking one personal favorite for each of the dozen systems on this list. It seems more fair that way, since there's a pretty wide performance gap between, say, a PSP and an Xbox One.

If it doesn't make you feel better, just accept this present with gritted teeth and a weak smile, then use all the best of decade lists you've collected as bricks to build an extra room for your house. Hey, it worked for Pee-Wee. 

CURRENT GENERATION AWARDS

PLAYSTATION 4
Horizon Zero Dawn

There's no shortage of sprawling action-adventure games on the Playstation 4, but out of the ones I've played, I liked this one best. Mind you, I had to stick with it for a while, but once I got past the introduction and a hunting competition that doubled as a tutorial, Horizon Zero Dawn stole my heart... and a lot of my free time. 

It's one of those games where you could progress the storyline about humanity's fall from the top of the food chain, if you weren't too busy hiking from one end of the continent to the other, using arrows to break the fuel canisters of robot deer and picking fights with metal dinosaurs twenty times your size. Who would be stupid enough to take on a fire-breathing monster the length of a football field? You would, because it's tons of fun and you get to brag to your friends about it if you somehow survive. Plus you can use the scrap metal left behind to power up your- eh, who am I kidding? I don't care about the power ups... I'm just here to set traps and launch explosives at giant robot bears. Look, you'd understand if you had Zoids when you were a kid.

XBOX ONE
Killer Instinct

History won't look back fondly on the Xbox One. Customer-hostile decisions by former Microsoft Interactive chief Don Mattrick hobbled the system's reputation months before it was launched, and compromised hardware meant that it couldn't stand on equal footing with the Playstation 4. Even the user interface lags slightly, occasionally taking a couple of seconds for the onscreen cursor to jump from one menu option to the next.

Look, Microsoft owns the Battletoads. They had
to find SOME use for them.
(image from VG247)

Nevertheless, the Xbox One had its moments. Re-Code was a diverting blend of the post-apocalyptic setting of Horizon Zero Dawn and the dash-focused play mechanics of Mega Man X. Forza Horizon 3 sent players to Australia for a racing festival with hundreds of challenges and countless customization options. Want to tune your cars to enhance their performance, or even paint the sides with the cast of Animaniacs? Hey, if you don't tell Warner Bros., I won't.

Then you've got Killer Instinct, the game that convinced me to buy an Xbox One in the first place. This reboot of the flashy 1990s fighter buries the original with more accommodating gameplay and a wealth of content, including a Shadow Lords mode which sends up to three heroes around the world to battle the minions of Gargos, collecting helpful items and healing their wounds from previous battles. Maybe it's not better than the Playstation 4 exclusive Street Fighter V, but it feels like a lot more effort went into it.

WII U
Splatoon

I hate online gaming. Nintendo seems to hate online gaming too, which makes it all the more surprising that they managed to make a game that makes me hate online gaming just a little less.

In simple terms, Splatoon is a third-person, player vs. player shooter. That doesn't really do it justice, though... it's more accurate to say that Splatoon is a little like Counter-Strike, but a whole lot more like a day at Nickelodeon Studios, complete with cartoon sea life and rivers of Gak. Your goal is to tag as much territory as possible with your team's color of slime before time runs out. Your Inkling (a fashion-forward preteen squid) can hide from opponents and fill her slime tank by diving into puddles of the same color. However, contact with slime from the other team slows the Inkling down and can even "pop" her, forcing her to return to the starting point on the map.

There are other play styles, generally in the ranked mode, but I found Turf Wars to be the most enjoyable of the bunch. It's easy to learn, fun to play, and you leave each match refreshed and eager for more, rather than frustrated and discouraged. The Wii U didn't live up to my expectations, but Splatoon was one of those rare games for the system that left me with no regrets.

PREVIOUS GENERATION AWARDS

XBOX 360
Mass Effect 2

I bought an Xbox 360 in its freshman year, just months after its late 2005 launch. I own dozens of its games on disc, and at least a hundred of them digitally. It's my favorite system of its console generation, even with the red ring of death that forced me to get another one (and a later model, just in case). So when I say that Mass Effect 2 is the best game on the Xbox 360, that means something.

It just doesn't get any better than this.
Seriously, ask anyone.
(image from VG247's YouTube page)

I wanted to like the first Mass Effect, but the maze-like level structure and the wonky, luck-based combat system soured me on the game. The sequel keeps the compelling lore, complex characters, and branching dialog of the original, but keeps the stages streamlined and introduces fast-paced gun fights similar to those in Gears of War. The difference is that you're given enough time to swap weapons, issue commands to your squad members, and oh yes, breathe, keeping you from feeling overwhelmed. Also, you can use biotics to hold your enemies in mid-air, then fill them with holes as they helplessly dangle in front of you. Is it sporting? Nah. Is it sadistic? Sure. But is it fun? Ooooh yeah.

What I'm saying is that Mass Effect 2 is good. It's so good you'll want to buy all the DLC missions. It's so good you'll even do the boring stuff to make it last, like searching for minerals on distant planets while making the ship's computer reluctantly say "probing Uranus." It's so good that it... was better than the sequel and the hapless spin-off Mass Effect Andromeda. Maybe Mass Effect 2 was a little too good for its own good.

PLAYSTATION 3
Blur

Merging the competitive racing of Mario Kart with the more realistic settings and vehicles of Need for Speed isn't a "two great things that taste great together" combination. It's a "two great things that shouldn't taste great together yet somehow do" situation, like dipping fries into your Frosty or eating a bag of salted caramel Bugles. It works, but you're just not sure how.

Blur indeed works. In fact, it works better than most of the violent racing games released in the wake of Burnout 3: Takedown. Unlike Full Auto, it remains fun even after the sheen of the polished graphics and the thrill of charging down a city street with a machine gun lose their novelty. Unlike Split/Second, you can attack the other racers directly, rather than starting an earthquake somewhere on the track and hoping for the best. Blur even has an edge over Mario Kart in that its attacks pack a meaningful punch, and that there's no blue shell which flips the outcome of the race on its head. Instead you get a Shock, three land mines with a wide detonation radius that are difficult, but not impossible, to dodge.

Blur isn't exclusive to the Playstation 3, and it may not even be the best game released for the system after 2010, but it's some of the most fun I've had with this console. 

WII
Super Mario Galaxy 2

That must be the Super Mario world
I've heard so much about.
(image from VideoGamesBlogger)

There was really only one choice for this honor. The highlights of the Wii library were top loaded, with most being released between the system's 2006 launch and the end of 2009. That rules out the pack-in Wii Sports, Zack and Wiki, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Punch Out!, among others. The later games on the Wii I either didn't play (Kirby's Epic Yarn, Skyward Sword) or didn't like (Xenoblade Chronicles, Rhythm Heaven Fever), so what else is left?

Well, Kirby's Return to Dreamland is a solid if predictable entry in that series, and The Last Story is fine if you like inscrutable action RPGs, but I'm going with Super Mario Galaxy 2. I honestly don't remember much of it beyond a planet shaped like Mario's head, but I did love the previous game from start to finish, and this was more of it. You really can't go wrong with a second helping of Super Mario Galaxy.

HANDHELD AWARDS

NINTENDO 3DS
Super Smash Bros. 4

It took a while for me to understand the appeal of Super Smash Bros., but thanks to this handheld extension of the long-running series, I finally get it. It's as full-featured as any of the previous Smash games, yet approachable in a way they weren't. If you want to get in some quick practice, just flip open the 3DS, start the game, and you're brawling in twenty seconds. Alternately, you can play one of Smash 4's mini games, fun diversions that also teach you the basics of combat along with the unique abilities of each character.

However, the headliner for this version of Smash Bros. (and a feature painfully absent from its Wii U counterpart) is Smash Run. Stuff the levels from Brawl's Subspace Emissary into a sack, smack them a few times with a hammer, and spill the pieces onto a table, and you've got a random jumble of gaming goodness that emphasizes the platforming aspects of the series. As an added bonus, it also lets you punch a bunch of creatures from at least two dozen other video games. What self-respecting nerd would want to miss out on a chance to sink their fists into a Pooka from Dig Dug?

PLAYSTATION VITA
Axiom Verge

Some games elicit oohs and aahs.
The reactions to Axiom Verge are
closer to "Ewws!" and "Aughs!"
(image from Engadget)

Axiom Verge is many things. It's creepy, weird, pretentious, discordant, and ugly, but it's also the best damn Metroidvania of the decade... no small feat as there's been so many of them. Paradoxically, Axiom Verge's success comes not only from how faithful it is to the first Metroid, but all the ways it breaks tradition with the games that have followed in its footsteps. Take for instance the double jump. There isn't one in Axiom Verge. Gaps between platforms are cleared by launching a drone over the chasm, then swapping places with it as it lands. Abilities like this demand unconventional thinking, but after a hundred or so of these search action games, unconventional thinking is exactly what this well-worn genre needs.

Glitching is the most important of Axiom Verge's out-of-left-field play mechanics. The lead character can alter reality with a glitch gun, turning once fearsome enemies into harmless clusters of graphic tiles and pulling platforms out of thin air. You could argue that making progress through Axiom Verge by tugging at its loose threads and unraveling it is a fascinating deconstruction of video games. Even if you don't want to dig too deeply into the philosophical underpinnings of the glitch gun, you've got to admit it's a damn cool concept.

PLAYSTATION PORTABLE
Grand Knights History

The PSP was near the end of its lifespan in 2011, leaning on a cane with one wrinkled hand while waiting to pass its baton to the Vita with the other. While the system was largely forsaken in America by this point, the Japanese weren't yet willing to let it go, releasing games for the PSP in 2011 and beyond. Not just the usual mediocrities designed to cash in on the latest cartoon, but good games! Games rivaling the best you'll find in the PSP library! Games like Grand Knights History.

Designed by Vanillaware and featuring the company's gorgeous hand-drawn artwork, Grand Knights History is a role-playing title where you assemble a team of young warriors, archers, and wizards, and take them on a series of scouting missions across a vast continent ruled by three kingdoms. Your goal is to give these squires enough training to serve your kingdom as knights. Eight years ago, there was an online component where you could pit your best fighters against those of other players, but even without it, there's enough in Grand Knights History to keep you engaged... and dazzled. When you're not staring gape-jawed at the graphics, you'll battle gangs of monsters in turn-based combat, with you and your enemies trading blows on a grid-like battlefield. Imagine a cross between tennis and chess with the usual RPG trappings, and you've got the right idea.

MOBILE
Forget-Me-Not

Smartphone games generally don't hold your attention for long, and they generally don't have the restraint to charge you once for the experience, opting instead to periodically halt your progress and demand micro-transactions if you wish to continue. I suspect the frequent tolls are why people don't play smartphone games for very long, and I'm also sure that the lack of them in Forget-Me-Not is why I've kept playing it long after its 2011 debut.

You pay for Forget-Me-Not once (or not at all on iOS devices), and you get millions of randomly generated levels and hours of Pac-Manly fun for the price of admission. You'll eat flowers, quaff strength-boosting potions, blast abstract monsters with an unending stream of lasers, gobble the fruit prizes they leave behind, and get blown to bits by kamikaze bomb creatures. And you'll keep doing all that, not only because the action is perversely compulsive, but because it won't cost you a cent beyond the initial download fee.

REALLY FRICKIN' OLD STUFF AWARDS

ATARI 2600
Galagon

The Atari 2600 wasn't supposed to amount to much; basically, it was designed as an evolution of the Pong machines Atari released in the mid 1970s. It had very little RAM, no video RAM at all, and its early cartridges topped out at around 4K, just enough for simple player versus player challenges like Combat. Nobody expected it to survive into the 1980s and beyond, yet it did just that, getting the Legend of Zelda inspired Secret Quest in 1989 and the puzzle game Acid Drop in 1992.

I don't get how it is, but here it is!

Forty years after its launch, software is still being released for the Atari 2600, albeit in an unofficial capacity by fans. The best of these games are seemingly impossible arcade ports by programmer John W. Champeau, and the best of those is Galagon, which faithfully reproduces the gameplay of Namco's Galaga while adding the option to play with a friend. Together, at the same time. Not even the arcade game let you do this! Whether you play it alone or with a buddy, Galagon runs more smoothly than the port of Galaga on the Atari 7800, making you wonder how Champeau managed to make this game run on the humble 2600 without it catching on fire and burning down his house.

ATARI 7800
Rikki and Vikki

Truth told, this puzzle/platform hybrid has issues. The control is a little sluggish, and because the lead characters crumple in a single hit, boss fights are unreasonably difficult. I was lucky to get past the mole in the first level, but the last level- reachable only with a second player- demands not just perfection, but perfection in stereo.

Having said that, the stunning presentation in Rikki and Vikki goes a long way toward smoothing over the game's flaws. Few games on the Atari 7800 look as good as this one does, and absolutely no games sound this good, not even the small handful of official releases with a POKEY chip built into the cartridge. The catchy soundtrack and expressive cartoon artwork lend a sense of professionalism to Rikki and Vikki that too many Atari 7800 games lack. Just don't expect the joys this title has to offer to come easily.

SEGA GENESIS
Darius

The last two years have been pretty good to the Genesis. Not only did it finally get a worthwhile mini console to make up for all those duds by AtGames, it's seen a handful of high quality homebrews as well. There's been Tanglewood, and Xenocrisis, and of course Darius, which was included as a bonus on the aforementioned Sega Genesis Mini.

Details like these close-ups of the Silver Hawk
ships would have wound up on the cutting room
floor of a eight megabit port of Darius.

At first, I thought Darius was a pointless addition to the Mini. Didn't we get a pretty good Genesis port of the sequel already? Twenty-eight years after Sagaia, why take a step backward? Two reasons, actually. The first is that Darius is held in fond regard by the Japanese. The game's been ported to a half dozen game consoles, handhelds, and home computers. Hell, there were two recent fan conversions of Darius for the Sega Genesis, designed independently of each other! The point is, Darius is big in Japan. Sagaia, maybe not so much.

The second reason is that it's a really good conversion of Darius, four times the size of the Genesis port of Sagaia and noticeably less compromised. Seeing what was done here makes you wonder what might have been possible on the Genesis if cartridge space hadn't been so tight back in the early 1990s.

Dick Dick Goose

I'd better squeeze in a few more posts to hit that magic sixty-nine for the year, huh? Fortunately, I've got just the thing to discuss... House House's Untitled Goose Game. Imagine if you will a flat-shaded world that's one katamari away from being flung into space. Now imagine you're a waterfowl that lives to annoy the residents of a little town in this world. You'll steal bras from a clothesline, trap people in their garages, raid vegetable gardens, and do whatever it takes to scratch off items on a lengthy to-do list. You'll have to think like a goose to pull off these pranks, dragging items behind you with your bill and distracting the townsfolk with a well-timed honk.

Yep, that's pretty much the whole game in a nutshell.
(image from Steam)

What's nice about Untitled Goose Game is that while it's definitely got stealth elements, the gameplay is decidedly low stakes, making it possible for even a klutz like myself to finish it. If you get spotted while taking an item, you get chased away and the item is returned, giving you another chance to snatch it once the character's back is turned. It's a refreshing change from the status quo of this often punishing genre... if Kojima had made this, you'd be shot by the citizens of the town on sight and served for Christmas dinner. (Either that or you'd be carrying fifty pounds of cargo on your back and an artificial egg on your hip. "Do geese even have hips?" Shut up, you're ruining the analogy.)

People are already including Untitled Goose Game in their top ten games of the year, and even their games of the decade, lists. I'm not quite that impressed with it, but the game is nevertheless fun and relaxing and more charmingly British than an army of Hugh Grants. If you've got Xbox Game Pass, or fifteen dollars to spare, definitely give it a spin.

Two GameCubes Duct-Taped Together

image from GameSpot

Microsoft recently announced its successor to the Xbox One, and it's this thing. I would say that it's ripe for parody, but everyone else took all the good jokes already. Really, there's nothin' left. So I'll just say that if the Xbox Series X is going to have full backward compatibility instead of the carrot and string backward compatibility of the Xbox One, I could forgive its lesser qualities. (Well, not the name. Between this and all the other similarly named Xbox systems, it's an Abbott and Costello sketch just waiting to happen.)

Also, could we please, please have faster response time in the user interface? It's no fun having a cursor that moves to the next available option three seconds after you press a direction on your controller.

Single Use Case

If you've ever watched the show Good Eats with Alton Brown, you may know that the host utterly detests cooking utensils that can't multitask. You can't blame him, really... if you've got a potato peeler, and that's its sole function, it's just going to use up valuable countertop space when you're not peeling potatoes. And unless you're Gomer Pyle USMC, it's safe to say that you're not going to spend much time out of the day stripping spuds.

image from Hyperkin

I suspect that if Alton Brown was a gamer, he'd be as dismayed by the Hyperkin Hyper Blaster HD as I am. The Hyper Blaster plays one specific game, the Duck Hunt half of Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros., on one specific system, the top loading Nintendo Entertainment System that was released late in the console's lifespan. It's designed to let you play that one game on that one system while using an HD television set, but the top-loading NES isn't designed to work with high-definition televisions. Heck, it doesn't even have composite jacks like the original NES... it's designed for RF output, which can technically be displayed on modern televisions, but looks dreadful on them.

Right away you'll have several questions. Some of the more polite ones include "Why not just use a CRT instead?" or "Why not hack a Wii, run an NES emulator, and play light gun games with the Wiimote?" I won't repeat the less polite ones, but they involve the excess consumption of alcohol and parents who are also cousins.

A more useful third party gaming peripheral is the Retro-Bit eight button Genesis controller. It not only makes the Genesis Mini more pleasant to use, but is compatible with a half-dozen other game systems, either natively or through the use of an adapter. Most of my Sega-style joypads wouldn't work with the Mayflash Ultimate Adapter, but it recognizes the Retro-Bit... you just have to hold down and start for a few seconds to get the right key configuration. Retro-Bit's controller feels like the official Sega Arcade Pad and grants you instant access to the menu screen on the Genesis Mini, making it worth the twenty dollars even if you don't plan to use it with anything else.

Old enough for a learner's permit, along with
hair in awkward places.
(image from Amazon)

One other thing before I go... the Playstation Portable is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary today. I had mixed feelings about the system at launch, but thanks to the tighter control and sharper display of the 3000 model, it's become one of my all-time favorite handhelds, rivaled only by its successor the PS Vita. It's also- in keeping with the theme of this blog entry- extremely versatile, with the ability to run its own substantial library, plus the lion's share of games for the original Playstation, plus hundreds of other console and arcade titles thanks to the magic of emulation. If you don't already own one, now's a pretty good time to fix that oversight.

Parti Trop Tôt

Sometimes celebrity deaths prompt a shrug and a sigh, but others feel like you've lost a member of your own family, filling you with anger and disbelief. That was my reaction to the passing of actor René Auberjonois. He had the biggest impact on pop culture as the cynical, shape-shifting security officer Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but René had starred in countless television shows, films, and cartoons prior to that series' 1993 debut. He was the skeleton desperate for wine in The Last Unicorn, Darkseid's scheming servant Desaad in Super Friends, a villain who made Gargamel seem like an angel in the Smurfs Christmas Special... I could go on and on, but the point is that he did a lot of work in his lifetime. He even segued into video games after DS9 was cancelled, playing Janos Audron in the Legacy of Kain series and Mr. House in Fallout: New Vegas. 

Despite his talent and his massive body of work, René made time for his fans, meeting them at conventions and talking to them on his Twitter page. I got a few responses to my own questions about his past roles, an honor which I deeply appreciate, and regret that I'll never experience again. René Auberjonois is a man who will not only be remembered for his contributions to film, television, and interactive entertainment, but remembered fondly by those who knew him, or even knew of him.

Tall, Grande, Venti

Running a little low on energy? Well, here's a Sega Genesis triple shot, featuring the AtGames Genesis Flashback on the left, the real deal from 1989 on the right (minus the cartridge cover), and the Genesis Mini in the center.

Just like the Playstation Classic before it, the Genesis Mini is just so gosh-darned tiny and cute you'll want to hug it. The big difference is that you'll still feel that way about Sega's system after you start using it. 

Admittedly, I do have some gripes. The included three button controllers feel like you're gripping a monster truck bumper after thirty years of increasingly ergonomic joypads, and alternatives are limited to controllers made by Retro-Bit. I've got at least a dozen USB pads lying around the house, but sure, what's one more to add to the pile? Input seems a little touchy in the menu screen, and there may be a slight delay between actions and sound effects in some titles. It's honestly hard to tell without a slow-motion camera replay, unlike AtGames' Genesis where the imperfections were more glaringly obvious.

With all that said, the Genesis Mini is still pretty nifty. The case design is extremely faithful to the original in spite of its size, and the forty included games accurately reflect the Genesis library as a whole and are done justice by the system's strong emulation. The sound is so crisp that you start to notice subtleties in the soundtracks that were obscured on a real Genesis, and the graphics in each game shine when not held back by the original system's crummy composite output. However, most of the games aren't enhanced beyond what HDMI output can provide. For instance, Street Fighter II Special Champion Edition was recently given an improved color palette and cleaner sound samples by hackers, but what you're getting here is what you got in 1993, with all the rough edges intact.

There are a few exceptions. Mega Man: The Wily Wars, the decidedly lackluster Genesis port of the first three Mega Man games, runs a little faster and feels a little tighter than it had before. Not enough to make it preferable to the NES games, but it's a more pleasant experience than it must have been on the Sega Channel. The Genesis prototype of Tetris that was scrapped after a legal battle with Nintendo was also retooled, but perhaps not enough, with barebones gameplay and grungy digitized graphics that make it feel like a leftover from the Mega Drive's bungled Japanese launch. Finally there's Darius, which was written from scratch by a fan of the series and actually does feel like a bonus, rather than a booby prize. I was always a fan of its sequel, Sagaia, but this may actually be better. At four times the size of the Genesis version of Sagaia, it's at least a more complete arcade conversion.

The Genesis Mini is a solid micro console that Sega should have released a lot sooner. There are tons of these products in 2019, including several which can play the entire Genesis library with ten minutes of hacking. It doesn't help that the Genesis Mini was preceded by ten years of AtGames consoles which played many of the same games, albeit poorly. I imagine you'd have to be a rabid fan of the Genesis to fully appreciate its palm-sized counterpart, but with a generous selection of games, emulation provided by the always capable M2, and a slick if slightly cumbersome interface, they should be quite happy with the Genesis Mini. I know I'm satisfied with it... or will be, once that six button controller finally arrives in the mail.

Dick York (or, Leggo My Legumes)

Who names a kid "Peppermint Patty," anyway?

I just wanted to mention something, since we're going to be inundated with holiday specials very soon and the topic of Peanuts has been trending on Twitter. People have noticed from last week's Thanksgiving special that the Peppermint Patty character is kind of a jerk (you just noticed this? Really?) and seem convinced that an online shaming campaign will take care of this problem. Yeah, good luck with that. I'm pretty sure fifty year old cartoons are immune to your cancel culture.

Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of Peppermint Patty growing up. She wasn't as bad as Lucy Van Pelt, because nobody could be as bad as Lucy Van Pelt, but she was coarse and tactless and her relationship with the long-suffering Marcy struck me as controlling, perhaps even abusive. (Who refers to their classmate as "sir," anyway? Someone who's gotten one too many swirlies from said classmate, I suspect.)

That's kind of the beauty of Peanuts, though. Charles Schulz freely acknowledged that people aren't perfect, and illustrated this through his cast of characters. Charlie Brown is morose and easily discouraged. His sister Sally is selfish, asking Santa for enough toys to turn her letters into queen-sized pillows. Linus is quietly insightful, but sanctimonious and insecure enough to carry a blanket with him wherever he goes. Even the dog is demanding, quick to anger, and a hopeless daydreamer.

The warts and all approach to character design is refreshing in a Christmas special, really. While other shows around this time of year shove object lessons and merchandising in your face, Peanuts offers a bunch of simply drawn cartoon kids who are sincerely flawed, sincerely quirky, and sincerely human. Peppermint Patty can't possibly be a pleasant person to be around, and she barged into that Thanksgiving dinner uninvited, but you can't tell me you've never had someone like that at one of your own holiday parties.

Oh yeah, this is a gaming blog, isn't it? Well, I broke down and bought that Genesis Mini, because of course I did. I'm hoping there will be a hack available that opens the system up to a wider selection of games, but until that happens, I suppose forty and some change will do. Also, I grabbed a cheap copy of Forza Horizon 3, and you can too if you follow this link.