The From A to Z series lets our editors go back and take a look at games from past generations that are classics, overlooked gems, or just titles they remember fondly. The idea behind this is to pick five games from each letter of the alphabet, once a week to showcase. This delivers 26 weeks and 130 games to talk about. Hopefully it sparks some conversation, and of course plenty of memories.
The third in our series focuses on Sega’s Mega Drive (Genesis in the US).
Let’s start with the letters “H and J”.
Home Alone
The video game version of what is, undoubtedly, the greatest Christmas movie of all time (I won’t debate this!). The Mega Drive version was slightly different in that the player, as Kevin, had to defend the whole neighbourhood from the Wet Bandits, rather than just his own house. The player had to set traps and wait for the police to arrive in order to stop the Bandits. The game was bad…so bad it was actually kind of fun.
The Humans
I liked Humans because it was a lot like Lemmings, only with a nice gameplay twist which enabled the player to control a single human at a time. Humans can be added to, or lost from, the player’s tribe during the course of the game; and the tribe would usually be asked to kill something, find something or reach the end of something to complete a level. It was good, but just not as addictive as Lemmings always felt.
James Bond 007: The Duel
The Duel is original in the sense that it is not based on any particular James Bond film. It features nice, bright graphics and relatively standard platforming gameplay. However, the thing I remember most vividly about this game was freaking out when Grace Jones’ Mayday character appeared, and running away.
James Pond 2: Codename Robocod
It makes sense to follow a James Bond game with a James Pond game, given that latter series essentially seemed like an excuse to spoof each and every James Bond movie. James Pond always had a passable sense of humour, and a lot of puns. In this game, James Pond must rescue Santa and his helpers from the villain, Dr. Maybe. Festive and fun.
The Jungle Book
The Mega Drive version of the Jungle Book deserves praise for its superb graphics. The gameplay was really nothing special – standard platforming fare that handled well. However, the animation in this game was brilliant and I definitely remember it as one of the better looking titles of the era.
Tune in next week for the next collection of titles.
YouTube Credits:
Torne
World of Longplays
Sonic8000
debyaka
Oberon Gaming
