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 “K and L”.
Kid Chameleon
Great platform game. It featured enemies, obstacles, teleportation, face masks that provide different special abilities and a lot of well-designed and varied levels. My greatest frustration with Kid Chameleon was the fact that it didn’t have any kind of password system for game saves (sidebar: I really miss the password saves from this era of gaming!). Lots of content here though, and lots of fun.
Lemmings
Originally made popular by the Amiga, Lemmings was one of the best-selling games of the 90s. All the player has to do was guide a group of lemmings from the entrance of each level to the exit. Lemmings can even be given skills to help them on their route. Of course, all the obstacles, dead ends, hazards and time limits make reaching the end goal increasingly difficult as things progress. A benchmark title really, for its insanely addictive (and infuriating) blend of strategy and puzzle action.
Lethal Enforcers
Lethal Enforcers is a title that has always stuck in my mind due to its association with long standing (and controversial) debates about violence in video games. As a shooting gallery game that utilised digitised photos as backgrounds, it was a magnet for criticism upon its release due to the fact that its ‘hyper violence’ took place in a ‘realistic’ setting. Of course, that also made it fun and in my eyes (at the time), visually impressive.
Lotus Turbo Challenge
This game was actually the second instalment of the Lotus racing series, but the first released on home consoles. Looking back, I don’t really know why I got so much enjoyment out of it – the music is really poor, the graphics aren’t that great and the gameplay doesn’t really have any standout features. Despite all this, I remember playing this game a lot. I liked the arcade-style racing, and I liked the challenge of having to qualify for each consecutive race.
Tune in next week for the next collection of titles.
YouTube Credits:
World of Longplays
T. Murph.
TheLegendofRenegade
