Thursday, October 27, 2011

Games that didn't go Turbo... but should have!


 Every once and again I get the urge to go to the attic and pull out a game that didn't have the luxury of being on an NEC console.  One that wasn't blessed with the all time greatest video game library in history.  Yes, I brave the blizzard of shovel ware that is known as mainstream retro gaming.  Digging through crap game after crap game, I stand face to face with the eye of the storm, full knowing that it may be a foolish battle, but one that I must attempt to win.  Finding a Nintendo or Sega 16-bit game, that I wished was a TurboGrafx game!!!  O_O .................

Take a look at today's selection.  The classic DOS/SNES/Sega CD game; Wing Commander!  Growing up in a small town being a poor white kid, I didn't have a personal computer(I did have a Tandy CoCo, but that was more of a game console than most consoles of that era were!)  So my first experience with Wing Commander came at the hands of the SNES.  I loved this game!  I just thought to myself how deep it was, and how great the story lines were.  Twists and turns in the plot came about as the game progressed, main characters could die and you would miss out on major events in the game, it had great replay value as the game was never the same after multiple play throughs.  As far as space simulation games go, this was tops for me.  It had great game play, awesome music, and amazing graphics for the time.  Couple in the role playing aspects of all the on-ship activities and deep storyline and this is one of the all time classics.

Many years later I saw that a Sega CD release came out in 1994.  That seems odd to me.  Why would they release a game 2 years later on the Sega CD.  Well, I had to try it, so picked that one up too.  Played it and loved it the same.  No real advancement here in game play, but the character voices were pretty cool.  One thing that shot straight to my head, other than Kilrathi non friendly fire, was why on earth did TTI not try to get this game on SCD in the US?  If the lowly Sega CD was able to handle it, then surely the Super CD-rom2 system could push this game to it's limits!!  Why TTI?  Why?
I had many great times with Wing Commander, and I'd reccomend it easily to any gamer or any age.  If you haven't played it in ages, go back and give it another shot.  The game is awesome!!  Since recently playing it, I can really wonder- why wasn't this game brought out at least in the US for us Turbobbers?  It easily could have.

Oh well, at least we got Camp California and Sim Earth........

1 comment:

Windancer said...

What a great Article im a big fan of the old wing commander. Its been years but great game! Great read my friend