Just a few recommendations for some classic console titles in case you are thinking about diving in on some classic gaming.

______________________________________________________

NES:

besides your typical 1st party titles here are a few suggestions.

-Mc Kids. Yes it's a McDonalds game haha, but very solid platformer.. similar to what you would find in a mario title, but a bit more twisted. You pick up blocks instead of shells to kill enemies, and in some parts you need to run onto this gravity reversing wheel thing that gets you stuck to the ceiling... often to find extra items and to finish levels etc. One of my favourite platformers on the system.

- The Bard's tale. This is almost a port from the classic 8 bit computers of the era (c64, apple classic, amiga, etc) it is smaller version of the classic RPG but I like this version a lot... it's a bit vague, but it has a good story and it's well balanced between grinding and progressing etc...

- Batman (by sunsoft) great music, great tight controls, action platforming at it's best. I love the gritty dark art style and the music is some of the best written for the console...

_______________________________________________________

Genesis/MD:

- comix zone: unique art style, side scrolling (sort of) beat 'em up. This game is reason to own a genesis. It's cheap to buy and worth every cent... it is tough though so be prepared for a challenge.

- TMNT the hyperstone heist. If you liked turtles in time, you will like this... it's like taking one of the best turtles games ever made and remixing it. Some of the frames, enemies, and themes used in turtles in time and rebuilding a new game with it. Just some more of a good thing.

- musha. great spaceship shooter, good luck getting a copy.. keep your eyes peeled at garage sales in case you see this one cause it's worth a mint.

- flintstones (taito) This is a platformer, it's hard though... at first I didn't like it but then after a half hour I figured it out and loved it. The most similar game I can think of to this one is hudson's: congo's caper on the snes.. but this one is harder, slightly grittier, less cheesy (surprisingly) and what have you.. it's a solid action platformer.

- maximum carnage. You have probably played it.. but owning it is for sure worth it since this is probably the only good LJN game ever made... and it's very good. the bad guys are cheap though.. but still fun. It had a hint of "choose your own adventure" with being able to switch between spidey and venom between levels... it actually changes the path you take as well. There are cameo appearances from other marvel characters you can summon to help you however not during the last boss battle.

__________________________________________________________


TurboGrafx 16:

-Blazing Lazers: Yes lasers is spelled "lazers". This is a spaceship shooter, and it's quite fun. The graphics are really cool... but my favourite part is the weapons. I have not played many shooters, but this is the first time I've seen a weapon style like in this game... they dont always fire straight.. some of them do like a winding thing.. hard to explain but you'll see if you check out youtube. It's cheap compared to many other games on the system and that is a big plus because it's excellent.

-PacLand. This is a 2d platformer using the pacman IP.. hahaha.. and i'm sure the creators were on something. I like it a lot, but I suggest changing the control style in the options menu to the standard control style we're used to or else you are stuck using the I and II button to move and the cross stick to jump lol. This one is sort of based on the cartoon they had back in the '80's.. pacman has the german shorts and hat lol.

-splatterhouse. platforming ass kicking beat em up. This is known to be one of the earliest horror (aimed at an older audience) title. You are a tough guy, you beat the crap out of undead with your fists or two by fours... the music is great too... be prepared to dish our a few bucks for this one though as lately it's been pretty popular.


________________________________________________________

sega saturn:

-road rash. it's the same game as on the 3do and the PS1 (roadrash 3d) This game is great, and even though it's an older game from the 3do it's still worth owning just so you dont need to connect your 3do. Racing is awesome, beating people with billie bats is cool... doing both at the same time is genius.

-wipeout 2097, high speed futuristic racer (ported to europe only on the saturn, ported in japan as wipeout xl) this is the same game as wipeout xl on the ps1.. and it's excellent.. yes wipeout 1 on the saturn (ported to all regions) was also great but you couldn't actually destroy your opponents which was fixed in XL, as well as graphical improvements. I love this game.. it's tough to master.

-tomb raider. If you like the series, it may be worth it to you if you want to see it on the system it was originally made for. Yes it was later ported for the PS1... and they did so with a HUGE upgrade... the flipping cart wheel like climbing up move...

-fighters megamix. I love virtua fighter 2, I love fighting vipers... but now you get all the characters from both games in this one game... it's sort of like a sega version of MVC, or snk vs capcom.. if that makes sense. There are many secret other characters such as the nascar hornet from daytona usa. Also, if you were a fan of virtua fighter two... this gave a little move preview before the release of VF3... so you got to see some of what sega was working on for the sequel. I will say this one is easier then VF2 with the move learning feature.

-shellshock: this one is interesting. It has almost a cell shaded look... it's got that urban uniqness of some of sega's titles such as jet set radio. This game is nothing like that though (nor is it made by sega haha).. this is a first person tank shooting game. the objective in a particular level is to destroy all the tanks in a primitive city. It shows it's age but it's still unique... because it isn't a typical serious military game. It's a bunch of rebellious rappers who have created a gang of vigilantes to combat the new world order... it's filled with hip hop music and the beats are pretty good especially for their age. you can upgrade tanks.. and you gotta do missions.

-the action replay plus (4 in 1 card), this is not a game... but a must have for the saturn. Check playasia on google, they have a site to sell import gaming stuff. You often will find these cards used for 30+ even up to 50 bucks on ebay... they are about 25 bucks brand new on playasia. get one before they run out. I got one from them and it arrived quickly... I thought it was too good to be true at that price... but it aint a scam this one time.

So what does the card do you are wondering? It lets you play imported games. Earlier I suggested getting wipeout 2097 (aka wipeout xl) and I would not be able to play it on my saturn without this card because of region protection.

It also lets you back up the save games from the sega internal memory with the built in flash memory.

It has a game shark/game genie type of thing where you can input codes for games... sort of like hacks almost... this card comes with plenty already inputted in the card.

Lastly it offers the 1meg and 4meg ram expansions for some of the japanese games that require them... mostly those were fighters and what have you... most of those were sold with the ram cards they needed. No north american or european games were requiring a ram expansion so this is purely for the imports you will be buying. The thing is, if you wanted to play an import that needs the ram expansion and the action replay card didn't have the feature built in you would be screwed because you cant change cards from a region unlocker to a ram card... so it's a great addition to the card.

This card does not let you played burned games, nor does any card.


_________________________________________________________


the following consoles are sort of worth it because you can simply download the games online and burn them onto the disk with no need for modding the system in any way:

sega cd, 3do, neo geo cd, amiga cd32, turbo grafx cd (turbo duo)... I have not done this on the turbo grafx cd, amiga or neogeo cd (cdz).

for these older cd systems you should burn them at the slowest speed possible or they wont work. I have done so at 4X which is as slow as my burner goes.. they work but at max speed or even 16x .. forget it. if they actually work at first then they will not load properly later on when loading the level or what have you. the 3do is a 2x cd rom I think. so is the sega cd I think.
____________

3DO games can be found as cd images online.. ISO files I believe.. you will need about 5 to 10 blank cds to burn all the games that are worth wasting a blank cd:

-super street fighter 2 turbo. This is not 2 turbo, this is not super street fighter 2, this is not street fighter 2 CE... this is super street fighter 2 turbo. lol... it is hard without the hard to find capcom controller or any 6 button controller... with the three button controller you gotta use the start button as the light punch, A is medium punch, B is hard punch, C is light kick, left shoulder is medium kick, right shoulder is hard kick. Yeah screw that... at least you can change the controls in the options if I remember correctly. Oh, PS... the cross stick is garbage for fighters.. and if you are beating player 1 while playing as player 2... he is gonna just unplug your controller.

-samurai showdown. I love this game, the music included.. it's actually somewhat playable on the 3do... it looks pretty good too compared to many of it's other ports.. in fact I will say this is the closest to arcade quality port not on an SNK console.

- autobahn tokio. (yes it's spelled that way) this racer's graphics dont hold up well... but may be worth the burned cd for the title screen intro alone.. hahaha. Did I mention the 3do is region free? yeah that's good.. cause that adds one more game you may be interested in.

- bust-a-move. this is the best game on the system in my opinion... i love puzzle bobble and this port is awesome. they got it all down and made a flawless port from the arcade. if you like puzzle type games similar to bejeweled or what have you... this is a classic addictive game.

-guardian war. It's a tactical rpg, you pick up additional characters of various classes later on in the game... it's not bad, it's not amazing... but very simple and easy to spend time on.


___________________

sega cd, let me right away suggest getting a JVC x'eye or a wondermega.. or even a sega cd-x over getting the addons to the genesis. The addon versions take up more room, they tend to not work due to a resistor problem that will have you soldering in your machine.. forget it and get the x'eye which is a better made product, more durable, and it works as a karaoke machine too. Also, the cd player is super quick on music cds... I think there must be a lot of ram or something. the other thing is, the jvc x'eye has one plug... only.

for burning disks on this console, you will find online some downloads containing audio files as well as the data file etc.. cool, and that will work if thats all you have. but the music wont play properly if at all... you need downloads that contain a "cue" file as well... so with nero for example.. you would choose to burn the cue file and that acts as sort of .. a series of directions that the burner needs to make sure the components of the burn are done in the right order. again, do so at the lowest speed your burner can do.

games..

-lunar (any of them): the games are RPGs, they are good. nuff said. I suggest getting a real copy because it's a working designs title but if you cant afford it then burn it.

- mortal kombat: they never ported the sequel to the sega cd... or else I would suggest that one over this one. This is a quite good arcade port... it plays great.. well as great as MK1 does with it's less then fluid controls. It has secrets like finding reptile, playing as goro.. you name it. The music in this has that brutal sound.. way better then the SNES sound IMO.

- fatal fury special. I like SNK fighters and this one is an SNK fighter.. it's worth a blank CD I think.

- sonic cd.. this is an excellent game in the sonic series.. in terms of style it falls somewhere between 2 and 3.

- robo aleste: if you like musha, you wont like this as much but try it out anyways. again, you are a gundam style robot in a vertical spaceship style shooter killing shit that doesn't stop coming.

- final fight cd.. IMO the best game on the system. it's an arcade perfect port of final fight pretty much to the finest detail... difficulty included. The stupid SNES version didn't have guy, and lacked many enemies on screen at once... this one is as I said arcade perfect with poison, roxy, and all... mike haggar for president.



that will be all for now.. add some of your own suggestions.