Monday, March 7, 2011

X-Men for the Sega Genesis

I realized last night that I've been doing mostly Nintendo and next gen console games. But I want to keep my blogging fair, so I started to think about some of the older Sega Genesis games I used to play. It didn't take me more than 2 seconds before I remembered this classic X-Men game!


I never actually owned a Sega Genesis growing up, my family's mostly been about Nintendo. I remember a time when I was probably no older than 7 or 8, I went and visited my cousin who owned this game. I was blown away by how freaking sweet this game was. 

As soon as I got home I begged my parents to take me to blockbuster (hah, blockbuster) so we could rent the game for my Nintendo. What I returned home with was not the same game, it was some incredibly crappy, half aborted fetus of an X-Men game. It was that day that I realized the difference between 8 and 16 bit gaming.

About 5 years ago, I was at a Gamestop and saw this game sitting on their rack of old school games, I had to have it. I asked the guy there if they had a system available for purchase...I was in luck! I walked out with a Sega Genesis, two controllers, and some games (including my beloved X-Men) for right around $17.

Why This Game Was/Is Sweet

First off, you get to choose from all of your favorite X-Men good guys (how good they are is arguable by what series of the comic you refer to, but I'm not getting into that): Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Gambit, and Cyclops. Each X-Men had the use of their powers of course, but this wasn't just some little laser blast or regular teleportation power. You had advance options such as holding down the fire button for a more powerful blast or the ability to transport a friend with you (if you were playing 2 player mode). Sure using the more power attacks used up your mutant abilities faster, but they regenerated eventually, and you felt like a total bad ass one-shotting some of the tougher bad guys so all was good!  

You also had the ability to switch between all four of the X-Men (or two if you were playing co op), plus there were a couple of the supporting characters that you could use once a level, they'd come in and beat down whatever was on the screen.



The second reason why this game is sweet is that it was one of the first games (at least that I can remember) that broke the fourth wall. For those of you who don't know, the fourth wall refers to the imaginable barrier between an audience and it's target. For example, if you go and see a play, there's a fourth wall between the audience and the play being performed. The actors don't reference the fact that they're being watched, or ask the audience to participate in what's going on, doing so would break the fourth wall. 

This game breaks the fourth wall once you're getting close to the end. Professor X tells the X-Men that in order to fix the issues going on with the danger room, the master computer must be reset after beating a simulation. So you play one more level, once you beat it, you need to gently reset your Sega Genesis in order to gain access to the final level where you can defeat Magneto and win the game! If you didn't get the subtle hint, you're doomed to play the same level over and over again.

C'mon, how freaking cool is that?! 

Sorry this post is a little longer than most, I became enthralled with the X-Men's awesomeness!

20 comments:

  1. try Street of rage II, it was one of the best game on Genesis, with sonic3+knucles

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  2. very good
    i love retro gaming, it brings me back old memories ^^

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  3. omg u just brought me back turned me into wolverine when he runs out of mutant power!!

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  4. i'm just glad x-men arcade hit psn, i've played through it so many times

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  5. your blog just have me deja vu! i was obsess with this game back in the 90's. cheers man and more retro game posts!

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  6. Played a bit of Genesis back in the day, but never this one.
    Looks good.

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  7. I remember playing this game. Good times.

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  8. EPIC GAME, i used to play it all day!! great post

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  9. I actually used to own this, I can't believe I forgot about it

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  10. This game was/is the shit, thanks for posting it!

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  11. Cool! I remembered playing this game as a kid!

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  12. i like the sequel X-men 2: Clone wars

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  13. classic!!

    follow maiorqueportugalbenfica.blogspot.com

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  14. very good post ! I actually used to play that game back when i was little .. oh the nostalgia .. another follower, btw ;)

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  15. Awesome post buddy, one of my favorite sega games ever!

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