Eternity with Nerds

One of the best parts of TRON is when the lead
character gets into a disc fight with Sark, and
manages to rip through his defenses and carve
a trench through his forehead. Then the friggin'
MCP brings Sark back as a shambling, super-sized
zombie, with random shapes spilling out of the
massive wound. A dumb, dated movie? Perhaps.
But you can't tell me that scene wasn't
high-octane cool.
(image from Reddit)

First things first... let's pour one out for David Warner, Nichelle Nichols, and Paul Coker Jr., who all died last week. Nichols, best known as Uhura from Star Trek, had been in rough shape for a couple of years, suffering from dementia, but Warner's death from cancer seemed to come out of nowhere. Gamers know him as the triple thread of Edward Dillinger, Sark, and the Master Control Program from TRON, but David Warner lent his Shakespeare-honed talents and commanding voice to countless projects, starring as Jon Irenicus in Balder's Gate II, Jack the Ripper in Time After Time, and Ra's al Ghul in the DC animated universe. Warner's passing is a particularly crushing blow to a nerd like myself, who was utterly OBSESSED with TRON in the early 1980s, and continued to follow his career thanks to his roles as some of the most threatening cartoon villains of the 1990s.

As for Paul Coker Jr., he didn't really have anything to do with video games, but his work as a cartoonist kept me entertained as a child, whether it was reading issues of MAD magazine or watching Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. What's amazing is that he held on for as long as he did... you would have thought he had stepped off this mortal coil and into legend a long time ago, but nope, he died just a few days ago. I'd tip my cap to you, sir, but after watching Frosty the Snowman, I don't dare take it off.

So! Video game stuff. There's not much to report, aside from a solid release date for TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection. That's coming to the eShop, Xbox Live, and PSN on August 30th, and will cost forty dollars. Also, the Sega Genesis Mini 2 will arrive by the end of October, but unless you're willing to cough up $125 right now on a pre-order, it's not likely you'll get one. Sega plans to manufacture only a tenth of the units they previously made of the Sega Genesis Mini, so if you're not already committed to a purchase, you'll have to live without it. Alas, your insatiable hunger for the smash Sega arcade hit Spatter will have to be satisfied elsewhere.

MONSTER HIT!

What's nifty about the Arcade Stadium games is
that you're getting CPS2 titles, which weren't
offered in previous collections on the Xbox and
PSP. Maybe some day they'll step up to the
big leagues of the Naomi... one could only hope!
(image from Steam)

You know, I thought I would regret being impatient and buying NightWarriors in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium before I had the disposable income to purchase the whole collection at once. After all, each game is four dollars, and there are thirty two of them in total, which means buying a'la carte would cost you a kingly $124... not including SonSon, which Capcom "generously" gives you for free. 

Maybe I'll feel foolish about that decision later, when I plunk down forty dollars and effectively re-buy NightWarriors along with all the other games in the collection, but right now, at this very moment? I'm quite comfortable with my decision. Sure, I could have slummed with Darkstalkers: The Chaos Tower on the PSP, or dug up my Xbox 360 and played Darkstalkers Resurrection on that, but it was worth double-dipping for a portable version of what could be my favorite fighting game of all time.

As far as I'm concerned, NightWarriors represents the pinnacle of the series; more complex than the first Darkstalkers with its limited super move system, but without some of the unwelcome changes made to Vampire Savior, like the more threatening atmosphere and the Killer Instinct-like health bar system. You can turn off the tweaks to the gameplay in the PSP version, but you're stuck with the new soundtrack and backgrounds from Vampire Savior, tilting the game away from the whimsical horror of a Tim Burton movie and closer to the oeuvre of David Cronenberg. You've seen the Fetus of God, right? If you haven't, I'm sorry, but you're about to see the Fetus of God.

image from Street Fighter Galleries

Look, just be glad I showed you a concept sketch and not the actual stage, with its pulsating pustules and its glowing, semi-translucent skull and a host of unearthly creatures flowing into and out of the fetus. It's clear that the designers wanted to leave the player a little disturbed, and while they certainly achieved that goal, I don't have to like it.

What was my point? Oh yes, NightWarriors is worth whatever price they're charging, even if they charge less later... and this being Capcom, you know that will be an inevitability. The individual games in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium are four dollars right now, but will likely be two dollars in a few months, and maybe even a buck a year from now. Why wait, though? I'm not a YOLO kind of guy, but for a game this good, I'm willing and eager to make an exception.

Not shown: the soundtrack, which is like an
injection of serotonin directly into your eardrums.
(image from Pixel, the guys who made this)
(no, not the Cave Story Pixel, some other Pixel)

While I'm being uncharacteristically optimistic, I just wanted to offer another recommendation... Donut Dodo, which is currently available on Steam but will be released for the Switch by the end of the year. If you like fixed screen platformers like Donkey Kong, this will be your new crack. It's better than Donkey Kong in some respects, moving along at a faster clip and with a more athletic hero. If Billy Burns falls off a platform, it's not curtains for the baker unless he tumbles into a bed of spikes or a ravenous toilet. You can even guide him to safety as he falls, making him feel a bit more like Mario in Donkey Kong '94 for the Game Boy, and a bit less like his old, death-prone self from the original.

Donut Dodo is five dollars, and for that price, you definitely want to snap up a copy. I'm having a hard time convincing others of its quality, but if the Switch port by Flynn's Arcade is up to the standards of its Steam counterpart, everybody is going to know just how much booty this game kicks by the end of the year. Just remember that you heard it here first. Unless you watch one of the Gen-X game reviewers on YouTube, like the Bob Vila-esque John Hancock. In that case, you heard it from them first.

Genesis Does, Exodus Doesn't

You know, I should be more excited about a second Sega Genesis Mini. I should be, but what we're actually getting in October isn't as thrilling as the first Genesis Mini was back in 2019. Only half the games have been announced, but it already feels like Sega and M2 have painted themselves in a corner with this one... we're getting a handful of Sega CD games, which is a plus, but so many great Genesis games were already included in the first system that what's been offered so far in the follow-up have the unappetizing flavor of cold, stale leftovers. 

The Genesis bites off more than it can chew,
and chokes on its misguided port of OutRunners.
The system won't be the only one gagging.
(image from GameFabrique)

Take for instance Afterburner 2, OutRun, and Super Hang On. These were all fine games elsewhere, but these titles were heavily dependent on the convincing illusion of 3D movement, and without hardware scaling, the Genesis simply cannot provide it. Adding insult to injury is OutRunners, the OutRun sequel which uses even more advanced hardware than the SuperScaler technology found in the original. There's no way the 3D deficient Genesis can hope to do this game justice, and OutRunners not only lives down to those low expectations, but somehow tunnels under them. What's going to be announced next, the tragicomic Genesis port of Galaxy Force II? (Really, you need to see this in action to fully appreciate what a poor fit this was for the Genesis. It's so disappointing it borders on traumatic. It's the video game version of being told the Easter Bunny won't be stopping by the house next spring, because Santa Claus ate him.)

Some of the other Genesis selections are better, but nowhere near essential. You've got Alien Soldier, best described as a more hostile and claustrophobic Gunstar Heroes, zany criminal caper Bonanza Brothers, a conversion of Fatal Fury 2 that's accurate in all the right ways while also being broken in all the right ways, 16-bit sequels to Namco classics Splatterhouse and Rolling Thunder, and co-processor powered polygonal racer Virtua Racing. (At least that's one 3D game that won't look like it's running on a flipbook.) On the down side, the Genesis Mini 2 will also be home to The Ooze, a well-intended but clumsily executed top down action game starring radioactive slime, and the coldly received Sonic 3D Blast, a pretty tech demo that just barely finds its footing as a video game. 

The PC Engine version of Star Mobile.
Yeah, I'm not feeling this one either.
Why not Klax or Rampart instead?
(image from ZXSpectrumGames4/YouTube)

Even the freshly designed bonus games are kind of a bummer, with a port of the original Fantasy Zone as the headliner, and Spatter and Starmobile bringing up the rear. Spatter's one of those arcade titles in MAME you probably played once and forgot about; a low-octane Rally X starring a tyke on a trike. Star Mobile, a port from the PC Engine and X68000 computer, is a puzzle game on a set of scales. The object is to drop stars on the scales, sandwiching the small stars between larger ones while keeping the weight on both sides balanced. It's difficult to learn, and even harder to understand why you'd want to master it! As for Spatter, that was dismissed by Sega as too inconsequential to include in the first Genesis Mini, which only adds to the second-string, B-sides feel of its sequel.

Okay, now that's more like it. I've got this
game on a million formats, including the
Sega CD, but at least this would give me an
excuse to flip on this system for a few minutes.
(image from Sega Retro)

Admittedly, the Sega CD games are more promising. They include Sonic CD, Shining Force CD, and at least in Japan, Final Fight CD and both Lunar titles. Final Fight CD was the best port of the game you could find on a home console for many years, and given its enduring popularity in America I have no doubt it will be included in our model of the system. The Lunars are still up in the air, as they were localized by the long defunct Working Designs. Working Designs liked to crank up the difficulty and add timely pop culture references to the games it translated, and it might be too much effort for Sega and GameArts' current owner GungHo to unravel the mess they made.

Ultimately, what's most likely to dissuade me from a purchase won't be the games, but the price and availability. The original Genesis Mini could be found at retail stores throughout the country for a respectable sixty dollars, but like the TurboGrafx-16 Mini released a couple of years ago, the Genesis Mini 2 will be an Amazon exclusive, and it's going to cost a pretty penny. We're talking $103 for the system itself, and an extra $22 for shipping. You're still paying for shipping even if you've got Amazon Prime, so that's $125 for a mini console that doesn't hold the appeal of either its less costly predecessor, the TurboGrafx-16 Mini, or the Super NES Classic. Thanks to its limited supply and distribution, the Genesis Mini 2 will be a must-have for collectors with deep pockets, but for me personally? No sale.

Special thanks to Polygon's Owen Good and WildCatJF for information about the Genesis Mini 2 and its currently confirmed library of games.