"It's more than odd. It's disturbing."

World Heroes for the Sega Genesis has to be one of the worst Neo Geo conversions of all time. Sega secured the license itself (rather than Takara handling most of the NG conversions) and left it to the ''Sega Midwest Division'' to program. Now, think about the reasoning behind this. World Heroes is one of the most ridiculed games on the Neo Geo, it hardly set the arcades on fire. Then they deliver it about 2 full years after it was released in the arcades and a year after a great SNES translation was released. To top it off, they left it to this programming ''team'' to translate. I don't know about the rest of you, but in late 1994 I had a lot of things (hell, anything) to spend my 50$ on rather than this pitiful excuse for a game.

World Heroes is one of those mediocre like-it-or-hate-it games. In the arcades it offered 8 characters without the option of both players picking the same character. Geegus was featured as the end boss, which is just a metallic blob-man with no attacks of his own, but changes into the other 8 characters of the game. It had a poor button layout that goes as follows; tap A for light punch, press for hard punch, tap B for light kick, press for hard kick, and C button throws. Also featured were the gimmicky ''deathmatch'' mode, which was just a series of backgrounds that featured some gameplay altering features like spikes on the wall or an electrified ring.

I guess the first thing that you can pick apart is the gameplay. Whether you liked WH in the arcades or not, it plays like the most flawless game it the world compared to this. The characters actually move around the screen herky-jerky and can't even jump smoothly. Fighting goes like this: get near opponent and press buttons rapidly. There is no rhyme or reason to it. It is nothing like the arcade, and it is leagues below anything I can think of to compare it to. The special moves seem to be pulled of at random. I swear to you, I just played a game on the normal difficulty and only pressed the kick button just to see what it would do. Besides winning the first 2 matches, I pulled out 2 special moves just by pressing a button.

A note about the controls: This game supports the 6 button controller. It really makes no difference. Instead of the default tap/push setup like the arcade, you will get X/Y for fierce attacks and A/B for light attacks. Problem is, if you press rather than tap either A or B you will still execute the fierce attack…..just like the regular 3 button layout. Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose?

Probably the only nice thing I can say about the graphics in WH is that the characters seem to have more frames of animation on them than the SNES version. They also seem to be a bit bigger. Other than this, the game looks like a throwback from the SMS. The character selection screen has to be one of the most unspectacular looking things I have ever had to look at. The backgrounds all look like their Neo Geo counterparts, but barely move if they even move at all. In a crowd full of people maybe there will be one or two people with their arm moving up and down with 2 frames of animation. Fatal Fury on the Genesis animated better than this. The game also features that patented Genesis ''wash-out'' effect on the colors. Everything looks like it's about 2 shades to bright. No warping parallax floor effects or multiple scrolling backgrounds.

Here is a few of the odd things you will notice. At the beginning of the match, there is no initial ''round 1 fight'' type introduction like there was in the arcade, or on every other fighting game in the history of mankind. Your characters just stand there for a few frames, maybe performing a taunt move, then you hear what is supposed to be a bell ring (but sounds like a fly landing on your ear) and you begin fighting. Also, when you win or lose a match and you go through the points tallying…….your characters just disappear. That's right, when the text comes up that says ''you win'' or ''you lose'' both characters just vanish while the background remains. That's more than odd. That's disturbing. A perfect summary of this game.

Have you ever caught yourself in the shower humming a song? Or how about making one of those guitar sounds with your lip pressed against your teeth, where it sort of sounds like ''dvvvvttt''? Right now, either hum or lip-guitar a line from ''Mary had a little lamb.''

Congratulations, you have just composed and performed a Wagnerian opera compared to the sound that will come from your TV while playing this game. I am not kidding when I say that this game features the most puny, tinny, off key, and generally horrid music I have ever heard generated by the Genesis. I mean, its not horrid renditions of the arcade tunes. Its just ear piercing music that has absolutely nothing to do with the arcade. If anyone can identify, at the beginning of Safari Hunt for the SMS, at the title screen, it plays a little tune that sounds like it's about 5 different notes all with the same instrument. This simple preschool-like tune that was on a launch title for the SMS back in 85 is better than everything in WH is.

Very few of the voice effects made it to the Genesis version. You will soon tire of that same distorted ''ding ding'' of the start round and that overused punch sound effect. Of the voices here, they all caught laryngitis from Street Fighter. Best advice, plug a CD in or listen to silence rather than this game.

What about the presentation or any Genesis-only specials? It's a joke. The only possible advantage this has over the SNES version is that the matches are called ''Death Match'' like in the arcade rather than ''Fatal Match'' because of Nintendo's extinct moral stand. You can't pick the final character via code like the SNES version either. You can however pick the same character in VS mode, but rather than having a different color character like the SNES version, you simply get a darker character ala Mortal Kombat 1. There is no dedicated VS mode, but I guess this was a smart thing from the programmers. They knew this game was so bad that no one would want to subject another person to such punishment. You do however, get all the characters from the arcade, all backgrounds (both normal and death match), all bonus rounds and cinemas.

Bottom line, this game neither looks, sounds, nor plays anything like the arcade version. Unlike most people, I liked the arcade original, and was looking to pack this thing around in my Nomad. I bought it for 8 bucks and feel like I have been molested. It's a horrid game. I wouldn't recommend anyone playing it for any reason, even if you are a fan of World Heroes or ADK.

I don't know where the ''Sega Midwest Division'' is, or whatever else they have programmed, but if its anything like this thing….stay far away.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/17/01, Updated 07/17/01