Tag Archives: Master System

The Sega Master System, Part 1: Odd man out

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20140523_smsYou’ll never believe the reason why I wanted a Sega Master System so badly back in 1986. I had seen a Toys R Us ad for it not too long before Christmas that year, and sure, the system itself looked pretty cool. However, it was the game I saw plugged into it that grabbed my attention: Cobra Command. Yeah, the LaserDisc arcade game.

As a young, impressionable 7th grader who didn’t have a modem yet, I didn’t possess much knowledge about technical limitations, data storage, etc., so I surmised that sure, they could fit an entire LaserDisc game onto a cartridge. I mean, why not? Or better yet, use one of those nifty little Sega Cards! I later learned that Master System cartridges started out at 128KB (1 megabit) and those Sega Cards only held a fourth of that at 32KB.

Needless to say, I wouldn’t be playing stuff like Space Ace on the Master System anytime soon, even though I was convinced that it would happen. It didn’t.

While today’s consoles cost $400-500+ and only come with one controller and no games, the 8-bit era was more generous. For $200 at launch, you got the Master System console, 2 controllers, the Light Phaser gun, and two games: Hang-On & Safari Hunt. Nintendo offered a great value for the same asking price, sweetening the deal with R.O.B. No matter what you thought of that robot — or how poorly he “worked” — he was one of many strokes of genius in marketing the NES.

Anyway, Christmas Morning arrived, and even though I wouldn’t be fighting Borf, saving Daphne from the clutches of an evil dragon, or even stomping on Goombas, I was still in gaming bliss. Not counting our Apple //e, the only other gaming device in our household was an old Atari 2600, so going from that to the Master System kinda blew my mind.

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The first game I powered up was The Ninja, based on Sega’s similarly titled arcade game. I remember the opening like it was yesterday, with the stylish, scrolling text reminiscent of Broderbund’s Karateka, except now with catchy background music and drums! Percussion in console games was still new to me, and hearing that snare along with clear, multi-channel melodies was amazing.

I loved that game so much, and it’s one of my all-time favorites on the Master System. It was very challenging, with good level design, diverse enemy types, hidden secrets, tight controls, and lots of style. It was similar to other vertically scrolling “run & gun” titles like Ikari Warriors, but I liked the pacing and variety of The Ninja better.

20140523_transbotTransbot, one of only a handful of Sega Card games I would ever own, was another I received that Christmas. Sega got me with their marketing when I saw a clip of it in one of their TV commercials. When I saw the Star Wars-like AT-ST, I knew I had to have it. The game itself controls well, has several different weapon types, decent graphics, and a few interesting enemy patterns, but it’s an otherwise boring and repetitive game that I tired of quickly. Compared to The Ninja, or even the pack-in games, this one was disappointing.

Its quality would be consistent with the few other Sega Card games I would risk asking my parents for, like My Hero and Ghost House. I actually liked My Hero better than the arcade version, but it too was repetitive. I seem to remember Ghost House having a little more challenge and variety, but the fact that I barely recall any details about it speaks for itself. That was it for me and Sega Cards.

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Ahh, but then there’s Alex Kidd in Miracle World. This was, in my opinion, the “must have” Master System game. Before playing it, I really had no idea what it was about. Sega’s cartridge boxes are infamous for their atrociously terrible art, but something about the name still intrigued me. From the moment I turned it on, I knew this was going to be great. The title screen was so colorful, the music was extremely upbeat and catchy, and the world map inspired a great sense of adventure.

The platforming gameplay was also lots of fun, with sprawling levels going in every direction, different vehicles to drive, shops to buy items, and one of the more unique (and frustrating) features: playing rock-paper-scissors against the game’s bosses. It was all very unique, and I enjoyed it as much as Super Mario Bros., perhaps even a little more due to its more varied styles of gameplay. This was Sega’s attempt to eat into Nintendo’s success, but there was just no way. Still, this is a classic and one of my favorites of the 8-bit era.

Meanwhile, my neighbor across the street also got a Master System that year, which in hindsight was miraculous, since he would end up being only one of two people I knew at school who had one! We’d trade games every now and then, which was fun. I miss that about childhood: bartering in the playground bazaar.

20140523_blackbeltI remember borrowing Black Belt from him, which I would later find out was re-skinned from the Japanese Fist of the North Star original. It was a pretty straightforward and short side-scrolling beat-’em-up with mid-bosses and power-ups that you had to be quick about grabbing out of the air. My friends and I would laugh at the way defeated enemies would “explode” into a spray of square tiles.

The highlight, however, was definitely the one-on-one boss fights. Some of them were tough, and looking back, they were pretty impressive for still being part of the pre-Street Fighter II era. The characters were large, their movements were smooth, and when you would finally defeat them, they’d be on the receiving end of a satisfying flurry of punches and kicks. The only thing missing was Kenshiro’s trademark, “Atatatatatata!”

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Finally, another early favorite of mine was Fantasy Zone. A port of the Japanese arcade game, I would not play the original until years later on the Sega Saturn and in MAME. That wouldn’t matter, though, because the Master System version was terrific. In fact, after having played both, I like the Master System version better.

Graphically, the game was lush, detailed, and it certainly captured my imagination. The player’s ship — Opa-Opa — was also unique with its different wings, weapons, and one of my favorite touches: little feet that would come out and touch the ground, letting you stroll around the bottom of each level. You can tell that Sega’s artists had a blast visualizing the world and its inhabitants.

Fantasy Zone‘s soundtrack deserves special mention. In addition to each level having its own unique look, they all had their own distinct musical themes. This was pretty amazing in the day and age where many games used the same music over and over throughout, and this helped make these alien worlds memorable. Well-designed bosses provided a good level of challenge, all leading to the game’s surprisingly touching ending.

As much as I loved that first wave of Master System games, the best games were yet to come. Specifically, a $70 RPG that would blow away my expectations and change the course of my life: Phantasy Star.

See you next time in Part 2!

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The Apple //e, Part 2: More Influential Games

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I had a great time last week reminiscing about some of the Apple //e games that influenced me at a young age, so what the heck — here are several more that I loved from my gaming formative years.

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The game that I constantly heard about back in the early ’80s was this one, Dan Gorlin’s Choplifter from Broderbund. The Apple wasn’t a fast computer, so to finally see and play an arcade-style game that was as smooth and responsive as this was really special. Like many Broderbund games back then, it was all about the details. I thought the design of the helicopter was great. It displayed convincing flight dynamics, and the way it would subtly “bounce” when you touched down created a nice visual marriage that added to the game’s realism.

Controls were easy to learn, and understanding how yaw affected your weaponry was key to success. More nice touches included the perspective/parallax effect on your home base’s barrier and the way rescued hostages would wave in thanks as you dropped them off to safety. A lesser game wouldn’t even bother with such details, but Choplifter was no ordinary game.

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Several years later, I would play Choplifter again on the fledgling Sega Master System. It was a good arcade-to-home port in its own right, but I’ve always preferred the Apple original. There’s a purity to its straightforward, distilled design and fun, tight controls, and it still plays brilliantly today, 32 years after its release.

Speaking of helicopters, another game that my friends and I just loved was Sabotage. Its concept was simple: defend your single turret from bombs and falling paratroopers with a stream of artillery. What made this game memorable — for better or for worse — was the violence. Even though the paratroopers were only constructed of a handful of pixels, they would meet their doom in any number of ways, accompanied by “watery” sound effects that were strangely satisfying. My favorite was hitting a parachute with a well-placed bullet, sending the paratrooper falling to and splattering on the ground. If you were lucky, they would fall on someone who already landed, eliminating both of them.

20140502_sabotageFor a game with such simple controls, it was surprisingly deep. You could also select steerable shells, giving you the power to sweep the screen with a spray of bullets. It did nothing to help your score since bullets ate away at your point total, but boy was it fun!

Games like this and the more well-known title The Bilestoad were some of the earliest examples of games where violence was a big part of their gameplay. The Bilestoad in particular was extremely violent for its time, where pools of blood and body parts would be strewn across the game’s arena, accompanied by nasty sound effects and an ominous soundtrack. Sabotage was tame by comparison. It wouldn’t be until Midway’s Mortal Kombat in the early ’90s that videogame violence would become such a controversial issue.

20140507bruceleeOne of my favorite genres is the run & jump platformer, like Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Meat Boy, and Rayman. While I credit early arcade games like the perennial classic Donkey Kong for sparking my love for them, I spent way more time at home with Datasoft’s Conan and Bruce Lee. Both games consisted of challenging screens to conquer, with good controls, nice graphics, and swift gameplay. Bruce Lee was particularly fast, which made it a thrill to play. Having a ninja and sumo wrestler constantly chasing you around added to the tension and pacing, and remains one of my all-time favorite games. It was also unique for boasting a nice 16-color title screen in double high-resolution, a rarity back in 1984. Two-voice music also helped set it apart from the single, linear sounds so common at the time.

20140507drolFinally, for this installment, one more from Broderbund: Aik Beng’s Drol. Like many kids, I loved cartoons, so games that had cartoon-like graphics really appealed to me. Drol was one of those, possessing superb visuals and nice animation. When we would later get a composite color monitor around 1986, it was one of the first games I played on it, just to see what it looked like in something other than green. Another game had a similar style — Tony & Benny Ngo’s Bandits (Sirius Software) — and looking back, these two games had a notable influence on my art style over the next few years, especially when it came to fonts. They both still look super-clean to me, fueling my belief that good art, no matter what the medium, never gets old.

That’s it for now. Thanks for putting up with the green screenshots, by the way. Although I would soon go on to play all of these games in color, my fondest memories of them are from that old, 12″ monochrome monitor.

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