Genesis Does... Steroids!

I've been screwing around with that AI art generation program Midjourney, having the service create various images in the style of popular science-fiction artists. I recently entered this prompt...

video game controller Syd Mead style

...and here's what popped out.

I could have sworn I've seen one of these before.

image from Planet Virtual Boy
(natch)

I knew I recognized that from somewhere! Actually, with all due respect to the late Gumpei Yokoi, I like the imitation Syd Mead design better. It's very "1960s vision of the future," as opposed to the Virtual Boy, which is more "only has a future as a conversation piece in someone's worryingly large video game collection."

Anyway. More great stuff is coming to the Sega Genesis, courtesy of some very talented hobbyist programmers from Brazil. You know that Genesis port of Final Fight I was talking about in a previous post? It's Mega Final Fight now, and it includes a mode where you have to patch a hole in the time-space continuum... by punching a lot of guys. I mean, it is Final Fight. You solve all of your problems by sticking your fist in the throats of street gangs and just-barely-legally-distinct professional wrestlers.

16-bit Mayor Cody? And new characters?!
This game is bordering on swagger at this point.

The expanded mode is purely optional, but it's worth exploring, as it increases the number of playable characters. Now you can fight as the nimble lady ninja Maki from Final Fight 2, and Captain Commando from his eponymous game. (Eponymous? I never liked the mouth feel of that word.) Maybe the designers will really go nuts and include one of the characters from Battle Circuit, an obscure beat 'em up that somehow manages to outweird Captain Commando. Yes, the game that features a baby in a mech and a zombie who can turn his foes into sludge with a swipe of his "genetic knives."

Also on the menu is a new demo for Mega Man: The Sequel Wars, and most ambitiously, a work-in-progress port of Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, a later Neo-Geo release which common sense would dictate would be well beyond the reach of the Genesis. "Ao contrário!," claims the design team, as they crank out a game that's surprisingly close to the original, aside from an expected drop in color and detail for the backgrounds. The characters, though! They border on magnificent, nearly as vibrant and well animated as they were in the Neo-Geo arcade game... all 394 megabits of it. Ooh, ooh! Now do Garou: Mark of the Wolves next!

(They're Brazilians, Jess, not miracle workers.)

Last and certainly least, it seems we've seen the last of the bitter fruit from that online harassment site. You know the one... douchebag central. They've become so toxic that not even the Russians will touch them, leaving them to drift in the depths of the dark web like so many turds flowing through a sewage canal. You may have had to wait too long for it, Near, but at last, vengeance is yours.