Panzer Dragoon Orta, OG Xbox, though I'm sure people have heard of the Panzer Dragoon series, especially Sega enthusiasts who loved the Saturn line-up of the Panzer Dragoon, PZ Zwei & PZ Saga, Panzer Dragoon Orta often doesn't get the recognition it deserves as probably one of the last great rail shooters and probably the best entry in the franchise. Crimson Dragon was fun but pales in comparison to this marvelous gem.
Tetrisphere 64, originally called something else I'm sure, it was originally shown at a trade show as being an Atari Jaguar game in development, Nintendo went and paid to have the game made for the N64 instead, the game was changed to use the Tetris license, awesome game for its time, but must have not made a splash as Nintendo never made another. The company that made it closed and the rights on their end are in an obscure holding company in Canada that several other companies go by, just sitting there, rotting away, I imagine Nintendo hasn't done anything with the game as there's nobody to contact about rights to do anything with it.
Those aren't random though, I've written about those many times as games I'd like to see get a sequel or get HD remastered. As for randoms:
- Time Soldiers - I remember this both as a Sega Master System title but also as an arcade title. I remember what stuck out was the controls, the analog moved you left, right, up, down like normal, but the controller twisted to burn the characters direction they face and fire in. As for the game, nothing remarkable, you travel to random levels in time for all I remember, move through the map, fight a boss, go to another time. If I remember correctly there might have been an option to stay in the time and continue or to move onto a new level. Anyhow, back on controls, I think other games had solutions to this idea of moving one way facing others, if I remember correctly Smash TV did dual sticks, one for movement direction other for fire, this i feel was better than the one stick with a twist, more like our modern dual analog controls. Funny how this didn't catch on sooner as I'm sure this was an 80s innovation.
- In the Hunt on PS1 - I liked this game a great deal, it was like an arcade coin op side scrolling shooter, generic idea but this had that great animation to the sprites like Metal Slug, except as far as I know it just got the one game, unlike Metal Slug which got more sequels than Debbie Does Dallas. Also think it was available on Saturn, but I imagine many people were unaware of this gem.
- Aliens arcade game made by Konami, we'll probably never see this hit the PS4 or XBO store, Konami no longer has licensing rights to the Aliens franchise and doesn't give a damn about publishing a dinosaur like this, but I loved it. Great co-op coin-op side scrolling arcade shooter and great use of the Aliens license. I used to pump quarters into this like crazy back in the day. I find it funny Konami got the license to make this game, especially since in many ways Contra seemed Aliens inspired and then they go and rip it off and in return they got to make a Aliens game. Tangent time, I also find Contra of poor taste for a title considering how the word probably came up as a result of the Iran-Contra scandal that was big in the news for years.
- Galaxy Force 2, anybody that remembers this in the arcade probably remember the big semi gyroscope like seat one sat in with the large screen monitor in front of them and the seat twisiting, tilting turning all directions, going up and down, and for a whopping $.75 which was a lot for its time. Even playing it today (available on 3DS) I was thinking how this game and some other Sega games did something not many I can think of did, and that's sprite overkill, they'd stack sprites behind each other to create a sense of 3D and forward movement, and in some cases they could stack quite a few sprites on screen at once. As for the game, basically think of After Burner in space.
- Narc, it's an old Midway game, they made an NES game surely nobody remembers, also never ended up on a Midway classics collection before they went belly up so don't imagine we'll see this any time soon. Despite being incredibly violent for its time, I'd say it's every bit as disturbing today given the lack of moral ambiguity in this game. You're basically a cop that just decides to jump right in the middle of a inner city drug epidemic guns blazing, shooting up every motherfucker you see, they're all trying to kill you and you just waste away, even firing rockets to send body parts flying across the screen. It's too disturbing to think about. Villains drop drugs, lots of drugs that you pick up along with money and ammo and whatever (some villains stab and throw needles at you too), and it's like a between level tally like in Smash TV to see how much of each kind of thing you did.
- Cool Spot, most times these days we laugh at advertisement games, but this one was actually pretty darn cool. My neighbor had the SNES version and I borrowed it from her a bunch.
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