03/01/01

The Sega Smash Pack Volume 1

Ah. The late 1980's/early 90's. The renaissance days of gaming. Gas for under a dollar. Nobody knew about ozone layers or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. It was sort of a blissful time for gaming. Nintendo and Sega were still feuding with their systems and all was good for gamers. 

So now we are in the 21st century and what do we have? A goofball president. The Chalupa. Brittany Spears (hey, I guess it ain't all bad.) Brittany Spears' music (Well I guess I was wrong..) And games that don't really deliver like they did "back in the day". Sega must have realized this, so here we sit with their release, The Sega Smash Pack Vol.1 . 

 So what is on this glorious throwback to yesteryear? Well, enough to get you out of your seat and make you go purchase this thing, if not for nostalgic value alone: 

 1. Altered Beast: Ah yes. The very epitome of sidescroller. Resurrected by the Gods, you must do battle with monsters and hideous beasts alike. Play even only if to hear the godawful funny digitized voice sample "Wise fwom yo gwave!" 

 2. Golden Axe: A horrible version of this game (which is unfortunately identical to the Genesis version.) Slice and dice up smelly dwarves, goblins and gnomes. I personally never liked GA, but it COULD be fun, I guess. 

 3. Sonic The HedgeHog: Now that's what I'm talking about. Sega's personal Chocobo b*tch slave, Sonic has been bled dry for his mascot greatness. See him back in his heyday when he was actually sorta hardcore and didn't have all that Tails/Knuckles/Amy/Big nonsense. 

 4. Shining Force: THE GAME TO GET THIS PACK FOR. Period. A great strategy battle game which we all hope and pray for more sequels for. 

5. Phantasy Star II: Apparently a great game, even though I have not the time to go such a quest at the moment. But seems like good stuff. 

6. Streets Of Rage 2: The hits just keep coming. A great game and the only game on the disc (sans Virtua 2 and Swirl) that's music is anywhere close to the original cartridge. Too much fun to be contained on one disc. 

7. Vectorman: A great game, in the vein of other Genesis greats such as Gunstar Heroes (well, not THAT good) and Contra: Hard Corps, that isn't done justice due to shameful sound and slowdown issues (see later in article.) and I mean SLOWDOWN. Ugh. 

8. Wrestle War: A mediocre wrestling game with sub par everything....blah, blah, not on Genesis.. blah, blah... Let's move on, shall we? 

9. Columns: Excruciatingly addictive game. Will drive you nuts with its multicolored stones of death. Also possibly the 2nd best reason to get this disc. WARNING: DO NOT LET WOMEN PLAY THIS OR THEY WILL BE INEXPLICABLY BE DRAWN TO IT FOR HOURS ON END. There is no known explanation. 

10. Revenge Of Shinobi: Okay, so the Saturn Shinobi sucked big goat. Look not at Joe Musashi's troubled stages, but back at this game, which is challenging as challenging can get. And fun!  

11. Virtua Cop 2: While not technically a "classic" yet, this addition is welcomed as it adds another light gun supported game (which brings the total to a big whoppin' 2) and it's nice to see Sega release something that would have surely been import only (as it was before the release of this disc.). Bravo, Sega. 

12. Sega Swirl: The obligatory throw away game. Mostly for the moms/grandmoms/girlfriends that will inevitably stumble upon this disc. Direct them at Columns instead. Or not. 

As a whole this disc is great. The gameplay and graphics, with the exception of Vectorman, are spot on perfect. Even cheats that were originally on the cartridges are active on the disc! Plus getting hard-to-finds such as Shining Force and Phantasy Star II is great. Plus an easy interface for choosing your games and just the amount of games you get for a mere $20 in most places is just a grand deal. 

But not all is well in Segaland. The graphics on some games suffer from flicker and slowdown (Especially Vectorman...blah.), which is disappointing, but considering where they came from, is generally acceptable. The sound on this disc on the other hand, for lack of a better term, SUCKS IMMENSELY AND HORRIBLY TO THE POINT OF AGGRAVATION. I hate the fact that Sega could have held this game back a month or two to fix the overblown sounds and music, ESPECIALLY when emulator technology is SO damn abundant. It sounds like someone screaming through a tin can phone while in LA traffic. It's that bad. Let's hope that if Sega releases a "Volume 2", they have the common sense to get the sound as perfect as the graphics or at least resample the sounds. And although not necessarily a problem, it would have been nice to see a Saturn game or two up there (...cough...NiGHTS...Sonic R)  

In closing, wow. You really forget how fun this stuff is until you've let it sit on your shelf for X number of years. Pull this disc up and give it a whirl. Even with it's crapified sound, you'll like this history lesson. Now let's all hope and pray for Gunstar Heroes on Volume 2! 

The Reverend Mofat Jones is Old-skool, home-skillet. Word.

-Mofat

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