6-Pak

"Come for the Ninjas, stay for the Hedgehogs!"

Sega 6-PAK was released during the holidays of 1997. It was one of the system's last stands. It's a collection of 6 4-megabit Genesis games all complete in one 24-meg (in a way) cart. On to the reviews.

1989'S GOLDEN AXE

Golden Axe is a fall 1989 game ported over from the 1988 arcade game. It was the second game for the Genesis (the first was Altered Beast).

The Evil Death Adder and his army have terrorized many villages, kidnapped the princess of course and stole the ironic peace symbol, the Golden Axe

There are three heroes out to stop him; one is Ax Battler (whom ironically carries a sword); a ''well-rounded'' barbarian with volcano magic, second is Tyris Flare; an amazon with an very short-range sword, decent power and great fire magic. Last but not least, there's Gillius Thunderhead; an axe-holding Dwarf with great range, great power but weak lightning magic. They all have the same controls. You can do a few different kinds of hacking combos. Of course there's jumping, and running and shoulderblocking, and most of all, each character has a different kind of magic. You get magic from bottles you collect by hitting little elves. The more bottles, the more powerful (and fancy) the magic.

OVERVIEW I (darn it- I must shorten the categories!)

GAMEPLAY: 8/DESIGN: 8

This game pioneered so many things; it was the innovator of the hack-and-slash sub-genre, the first beat-em'-up to have characters that control completely different from each other, and the first to feature special moves (the hurricane kick doesn't count)! The characters control sufficiently and there's an astounding amount of moves for such an old game. Than again, you never fight a whole lot of enemies at once (no more than four).

The design is excellent mainly because this game uses terrain better than any other beat-em-up (besides the NES Double Dragon 2 and 3). There are actual hills and different ground levels on this. Sometimes you can use high ground to you advantage. Other times with low ground, or cliffs. There are also some stupid-looking beasts that you can mount on a few levels to help you fight. The enemies aren't too few and fit the chimerical setting finely (orcs, skeletons, knights etcetera).

GRAPHICS: 5

They're very bland in most places. You see few colors and those you do see are pretty lame. There's nothing even close to vivid or jaw-dropping here. Most of the trees, clouds and the rest of the backgrounds look like cardboard cut-outs. The best graphical effect is the ''Eagle Island'' level where you see the eagle's huge head in the background. That's not even that special. And I don't even have to say what the characters look like because they're all so clich`e. But I gave an extra point because the amazon's magic looks VERY good.

SOUND: 5+/MUSIC: 7

The sound is weird and average. The slashing sound goes ''tih-woh''. It's quite annoying at first. The screaming sound that every enemy does (even the skeletons despite having no vocal cords) is pretty cool. The only other sound heard often is the average sound of the spells. The music is very fitting for the theme, albeit rather silent at times.

CHALLENGE: 6/REPLAY VALUE: 6

The game is very short. There are six+ levels and it only takes about 45 minutes to beat the game. It should take a good three tries. Than again, there's also a ''duel'' mode where you square off against enemies one-by-one. It's good to play every year or so. The absolute worst thing about this game is how the enemies ALWAYS charge at you if they're more than 2 steps away. It's often that the only counter is for you to shoulderblock, too. Almost all of them do that; the orcs shoulderblock, the giants shoulderblock, and the skeletons shoulde- er- clavicleblock. This sometimes detracts a bit from the appeal of the challenge.

OVERVIEW II

GOLDEN!: The nice variety of moves, cool terrain strategy, great magic and historical importance.

UM- ERR- NOT SO GOLDEN: The short quest, very bland graphics and shoulderblock festivals.

SAY WHAT?

This game had two and a half sequels. Golden Axe 2, Golden Axe 3 (which was never released in the states) and Golden Axe: the Duel for the Saturn.

OVERALL: 7+

This game grew on me since my last review of it. A true pioneer and a good game at that.

1989'S SUPER HANG-ON

Super Hang on was another one of the first games for the Genesis and is also based on a 1988 arcade game. I know it's one of the first ten Genesis games. Here's the plot; a bunch of people want to win money so they- race and- stuff.

There are two modes: one is the arcade mode where you race through 4 difficulty levels (courses) that differ in checkpoint quantity. You have to reach the checkpoints before the 40 second timer (although it counts like 80) runs out. At each checkpoint, you gain a bonus 30 or so seconds. You race in either Africa, Asia, the US or Europe. Besides the length, the only real difference between what continent you choose is rather you'll crash into palm trees or bamboo trees :P
The other mode is the original mode. On this one, you race to (really) gain money by winning races and so you can buy upgrades (brakes, tires, etc.) to get your dream bike.

OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 6/DESIGN: 6+

Your bike on the arcade mode controls very tightly. As it does on the original mode (until the 20th hour of play). The courses all have pretty much the same types of curves- but some levels have more of them. The signs and trees are often placed VERY conveniently at the curves. But overall, the course design isn't too bad. The original mode could be better. You've got to have more patience than an RPG Maker player to finish that ish (if it canbe finished)! It's extremely tedious since you race the same courses so many times. I don't ever really touch that mode.

GRAPHICS: 7+

While they're not too colorful, the backgrounds have lots of detail to them otherwise. In Europe you can see the Effil Tower surrounded by a bunch of buildings in the background. I also like the way that it turns to night as you advance. The racers have some cool multi-color suits on- especially your driver in red and blue.

SOUND: 5+/MUSIC: 6

The only sound on the game is the average but accurate motorcycle engine sound. There are only four ''songs'' to choose from. They have pretty much of a southern rock sound. It fits for the game, but it's not my kind of music anyway.

CHALLENGE: 9+/REPLAY VALUE: 7

Okay, I know that I really suck at racing games, but there's something very wrong here. You dare you to even finish the beginner course after one crash. You can't afford to bump into other racers (that are ALWAYS close to you) anymore than once on the same checkpoint. There are a few unfair curves here and there and the game often rewards the player with good memory (meaning one that plays this game a whole lot) far better than one with skill. And the original mode takes too long.

OVERVIEW II

VROOOM!: The game is very good for quick plays or the Nomad, the racers are large and well-designed and the backgrounds look pretty good.

SCREEEEEEEEEECH!: Cheap curves and drivers, the levels aren't distinctive enough, the original mode is a waste of everyone's time and there are only 4 tracks (get the double entendre?).

SAY WHAT?

The arcade version of this this was the best-selling/quarter-gobbling arcade machine of 1988. Racing games back then were as big as RPG's are now- or fighting games in the mid-90's.

OVERALL: 6

This is a pretty good game that has some big flaws- mainly in the ''challenge'' department. But it's almost always fun to play this for a few minutes here and there.

1989'S THE REVENGE OF SHINOBI

The Revenge of Shinobi was released in 1989 and 1990 and it's the sequel to the 1987 Shinobi arcade game. I remember in 91' when my older brother would rent it and I played it once, got destroyed then gave up. From there I'd just been a spectator to him beating it. Man was that a mistake!

A new menace has emerged known as the Neo Zeed army- a crime syndicate of soldiers, ninjas, and robots bent on world domination. Despite these very ambitious goals, they still found time to capture a young girl (of course) and kill Shinobi's sensei as a sort of warning to him.

But Shinobi isn't scared- he's got shurikens to throw (and a knife/sword slash when he runs out or is in close range), foot sweeps, double jumps, a spread shuriken attack, and ninjitsu (magic) that can give him a lightning barrier, a hit-all flame wave, super jumping and even one that costs him a life to regain health and hit all enemies!

OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 10!/DESIGN: 10!

As I've said, Shinobi has a very unorthodox arsenal at his disposal. And the control is fine in every case except for the double jumping. Many of lives can be lost because of you miss that split second timing. As for the design, it takes you to clich`e places like a factory and more creative locations like a dock and a highway (where cars that can hit you pass by every few seconds). The enemy selection is nice too, as you fight animals, ninjas, bazooka men and even a giant robotic Brontosaurus!

GRAPHICS: 10!

The graphics are simply b-eautiful! The backgrounds have everything necessary down to cracks on walls. Not to mention excellent effects like the leaves blowing around on the first level and the the waves soaring on another. I also like the game's dark theme. There's no sign of slowdown of breakup.

SOUND: 7+/MUSIC: 9

There are quite a few cool sounds, but the all hits sound the same (and they're average) and that's what you hear far more than anything else. But the explosion sound isn't bad. The music (the first videogame Yuzo Koshiro produced the music to, I believe) is a resplendent albeit peculiar juxtaposition of techno and traditional japanese ''ninja'' music.

CHALLENGE: 6+ to 9/REPLAY VALUE: 9+

Despite popular opinion, the game isn't THAT hard! There are four modes (you have nine lives on easy) and you can choose to start with 0 to 90 shurikens (in tens). As you get better and better, you can remove shurikens and add to the difficulty as you get better. It will take quite a while for even a hardcore gamer to beat it on hard with no shurikens! By the way, this was the first game with more than 1 ending!

OVERVIEW II

GOOD KARMA: The good music, the great replay value, the greater graphics, the greatest design and the greatester gameplay!

DISHONORS: You can't quite move fast enough, the last level, the sounds aren't the best and the control of the double jumps is frustrating.

SAY WHAT?

There are actually two versions of this game; on the 1st one you fight Batman on the 6th level and on the 2nd edition you fight Spider-Man. Why I don't know, but who cares? It's cool!

OVERALL: 10!

This is a great game that doesn't truly lag in anything. Even better, it's only about $5 and it's easy to find! It's the best Shinobi and Genesis action game. BUY IT!

1990'S COLUMNS

Columns was released early in 1990 and was a translation of the 1988 or 9 arcade game. The plot is simple; Sega wanted to rip off Tetris and change a few aspects. So they did!

there's a small black screen with ''pyramid'' walls around it (think of the Tetris set-up- even the ''next piece'' box in the corner!). Jewels fall just like blocks do on Tetris. Only on this, Each ''block'' consist of three gems attached to one another, and your goal is to stack three gems of the same color on top of each other. After which they all burst. You can make big combos if you think hard enough (or if you're just damn lucky). You can change the formation of the blocks any way you want. You can play it in time trials, scoring contests, Flash Columns (where you try to get to and destroy a certain flashing gem).

OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 8/DESIGN: 8

There is a nice variety of modes and nice control, although any idiot can have good control on a block game. But the coolest thing about this game is it's having a 2-player simultaneous mode. Which Tetris couldn't seem to do.

GRAPHICS: 5+

Nothing spectacular. I would've liked to have had more backgrounds. But you just see the same few brick walls. But I do like the way the gems scintillate.

SOUND: 5+/MUSIC: 6

Again, very average. The only two sounds is when you break a gem (so-so) and when you advance a level (annoying). Like on Super Hang-on, there are only four ''songs'' on this game. All with an Egyptian feel to them. But the music is far too serene and monotonous overall.

CHALLENGE: ?/REPLAY VALUE: 9+

The challenge depends on what you set your goals for. It can be for 1 jewel or 1000 jewels. I wouldn't exactly see why anyone would get totally sick of this, so it has quite a bit of replay value.

OVERVIEW II

GEMS: The game can be quite addictive at times, there's a 2-player option and it never really gets old.

STONES: The average graphics, sounds and music. But remember kiddies- it's what's on the inside that counts.

SAY WHAT?

I'm at level 105 at 5000 jewels and nearly 4 and 1/2 million points SO FAR! Beat that!

OVERALL: 7+

This is a good game for traveling or just relaxing. Otherwise, it's not that good for excitement and what-not.

1990'S SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

Sonic the Hedgehog was released in (August?) 1990. It was with this game that Sega got their first VERY big hit on the Genesis. It's definitely the most requisite milestone in Sega lore that even temporarily relegated Nintendo! A large part of Sonic's fame could probably be attributed to his maverick and hasty yet ''cool'' (i.e. ''with an attitude'') behavior. And lets face it, while Mario was in some of the best games ever, the character himself was useless! Who can relate to an Italian plumber that rescues a princess? True, a Hedgehog protaginist doesn't make much sense either, but at least it fits (and has) a story well.

Speaking of the story, it goes like this; a plump, evil alien (we call them humans over here) named Dr. Robotnik invaded a planet inhabited only by animals (with only one having arms or shoes for some reason) and turned them all into robots to do his dirty work. All but the blue Hedgehog, Sonic, whom vowed to rescue all of the animals and give Robotnik a good beating for the intention.

OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 7+/DESIGN: 8

He can run loop-de-loops and on walls, but he can't walk up a damn 3 foot hill. Anyway, the control is a bit tight, but there are only two moves on the game; one is jumping and the other is spin rolling (both in which he turns into a blurry blue ball). He uses both to bounce off/cut through enemies. Speaking of which, they're an interesting little bunch- ranging from a mantis that tosses blades at you to a Monkey with exploding coconuts. The levels ain't bad either. For example, one is a giant pinball machine and one is an underwater tunnel.

GRAPHICS: 8+

Of course, he's quite a pioneer in ways other than the sells too. This game showed what the Genesis could really do visually like only Strider and Aladdin could. This was by far the fastest game of all time- at the time. It was cool seeing all those running parts. Sonic was also the first character with ''stand still'' animations. The backgrounds and colors are nothing to brag about.

SOUND: 4/MUSIC: 9

The sounds are just plain annoying. I can't STAND that jumping sound (''wrroup!''), which you'll hear the most by far. The sound that happens when you get hit has a nice ring to it (no pun intended), but most of the others are just so-so or lame. This games music, which is also produced by Yuzo Koshiro, is simply brilliant. This time it's a hybrid of techno and ''cute'' music. Some of it is extremely relaxing- they could almost send on to tears. Mainly the bonus stage theme and the Star Light Zone. The Scrap Brain Zone's ''alien invasion'' type music is also welcome.

CHALLENGE: 6+/REPLAY VALUE: 6+

I like the idea of being alive as long as you have rings, instead of just making them complete rip-offs of Mario's coins. The game isn't TOO easy or hard, but I bet that at least 75% of lives you lose will be on 1-hit-wonders (spikes, cliffs, drowning, etc). Another pioneering thing is this being the FIRST game with secrets necessary to get the best ending. It's all about the bonus rounds.

OVERVIEW II

WAY PAST COOL!: The historical value, the cool music, the emeralds, the flash and it's still pretty fun.

NO WAY!: Cheap deaths, annoying sounds and a lack of supporting characters.

SAY WHAT?

The Japanese version of this game has a noticably higher amount of parallax than this one. This was also EGM's 1991 game of the year. And I love that debug code!

OVERALL: 7+

It doesn't stand out today like it used to, but it's still an essential game that no game player should be without.

1991'S STREETS OF RAGE

Streets of Rage is another one with it's roots from the Genesis instead of the arcade. It was made long after all the other games in this collection in the Fall of 1991.

The evil crime boss Mr.X (not referring to the old me) put the streets in utter turmoil and the cops couldn't stop him. So three young vigilantes decided to take matters into their own hands and bring X's syndicate down. Those three happen to be Axel, Blaze and Adam. They wear pretty casual street clothes, they don't have Hulk-like muscles and they can't flip 10 feet in the air while doing a spinning punch.

Nope. It's just an old-fashioned can of whoop-*** with no arteficial flavors or colors in it. All the three characters can do are their punching/kicking chains, holding and throwing and jump kicks. One's strong, one's fast, and one can't jump (guess who?). And once per life, each player can call the cops to drive by and give a quick bazooka blast to even up the odds. How they end up following you to the factory is still beyond me.

OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 7/DESIGN: 7+

I like the old-school beating style this game offers. Once in a while you can find a weapon like a bottle or a smoke bomb. One thing that we don't need more of is thugs- there are tons to beat on. Fire-breathers, torch jugglers, Ultimate Warrior look-alikes, roller skating ninjas (AAARRRRRRGGG!) and many more.

GRAPHICS: 8

The backgrouns on this game are actually quite detailed, but a bit dark. You can see all the city you need to like resturants, streetlights and tons of buildings in the background. The animation is acceptable, but it has just a bit too many frames skipped.

SOUND: 8/MUSIC: 10!

Nice sounds for the punches and kicks. I also like the growly voices. There are lots of other cool sounds like when the cops roll by. The music for this series is Yuzo's best known work. And rightfully so. This is ''street'' techno. I especailly love the music to the last level.

CHALLENGE: 6 to 8+/REPLAY VALUE: 6

The difficulty settings just determine how many of the same guys you fight. It's never that hard or easy on any setting. Beating this with each character won't make much of a difference. The game doesn't last that long.

OVERVIEW II

YES!!!: THE MUSIC, the cool sound, decent graphics and the old-fashioned gameplay.

NO!!! :The animation, the characters aren't different enough and the medium monotony.

OVERALL: 7

This is where to turn for basic beatings. There's always a place for them.

OVERALL AGAIN: 10+!

This is the only 10+ I'll ever give a Genesis game. Heck, Revenge of Shinobi can carry itself! This is my tied favorite collection game (with Mario All-stars). The only thing this is missing is a shooter..........

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/00, Updated 12/27/00