Sega offers a better way to play Genesis games, flips Wii owners the bird

Did you grow up playing games on the Sega Genesis? Do you still have a place in your heart for that system? One option to satisfy that craving is to find a Sega Genesis or Megadrive on eBay and play that, but if you want to do it for even less, there is a better way. If you’ve got a PS3 or an Xbox 360, Sega has your back.

Sega’s got another upcoming Genesis game compilation with more than forty titles confirmed, including all of the Genesis Phantasy Star games. Phantasy Star I was on Master System, and that appears to be the only reason it was omitted from this collection. Assuming it’s not one of the unlockable titles (last month’s press release mentioned unlockable Master System Games) I would have to call that an oversight. Rename the collection if you have to. Why? Because I would pay this compilation’s asking price of $30 just to be able to play a compilation of the four Phantasy Star games on my Nintendo DS or PSP. Check below for a list of games in this compilation.

Then ponder the fact that Wii owners can get many of these games on Virtual Console at eight dollars a pop against the fact that this compilation has only been announced for PS3 and 360. If they put Phantasy Star on here, I’m selling Sonic Mega Collection and grabbing this for PS3.

Source: Sega

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Namco ships three baffling new compilations for PS2

OK, let me make it clear that I’m a big fan of Namco. Dig-Dug is one of my favorite arcade games ever, and I really liked Soul Calibur II. I understand that the Tekken games are big with people who are into such technically precise fighters, and I completely respect that. This complaint is not really about Namco, it’s more about compilations that don’t make a lot of sense, and that’s an issue that’s much larger than Namco.

Namco has announced three new discs for PlayStation 2, and they’re all compilations. The first is Namco Classic Fighter Collection, which has Tekken Tag Tournament, Tekken 4, and the PS2 version of Soul Calibur II. What I don’t really get here is why they didn’t instead go with a Tekken compilation or a Soul Calibur compilation. I mean, why not put Soul Calibur I, II, and III in a compilation and sell them on the coattails of SoulCalibur IV? That would sell a lot of copies, especially with Soul Calibur never having appeared on the system. Heck, I would buy it. Why not smoosh all the Tekken games into one box, even if it’s something like the Metal Gear Solid collection where it’s just re-releases? I might buy that too, just to see what my brother is so crazy about in that franchise.

Then there’s Naruto: Ultimate Collection. This is Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 1 and 2 and Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2. The obviously missing Uzumaki Chronicles doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, even as someone who doesn’t give two shakes about Naruto anything.

Finally, try to make sense of Pac-Man Power Pack. Pac-Man World 2 and 3, along with Pac-Man World Rally. Once again, a key episode here is simply omitted. Where’s Pac-Man World? While it contains three Pac-Man games, none of them are actually Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man, which are still the only Pac-Man games I’ve tried that are actually worth playing. That last argument is perhaps being a little too gripey, but seriously, the lack of the original Pac-Man World is really strange to me.

At any rate, the Tekken and Soul Calibur one is a pretty good deal. Come to think of it, didn’t Tekken 5 have Tekken 1 through 3 on the disc as well? That would make that one an exceptional deal if you already had Tekken 5, I suppose. You could pick up the collection and Tekken 5 and have a complete set.

Source: Namco-Bandai, see press release below. Read the rest of this entry »