Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Black Squirrel - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

Cool Riders is currently getting star treatment at MAMEdev. It's been out-of-action for years, but has recently hit "working" status

GOALIN GOALIN GOALIN GOALIN

Cool Riders is the "spiritual" "pseudo-sequel" to OutRunners. It's was the last "super scaler" arcade game to be released by Sega and arrived well into the Model 2 era, making it a relatively obscure release. The hardware powering Cool Riders is exclusive to Cool Riders - it's a really strange game that until last week, wouldn't even boot. Supposedly it's still quite slow and there are still obvious emulation issues, but it's quite nifty all the same

anyway just thought you'd like to know. This is the final form of Turbo/Hang-On/OutRun before 3D took over

The internet gives the Sega Mega Drive a 1990-11-30 launch date in "Europe". Where does this date come from? I'd like to dispute it because it contradicts quite a bit of what I've read, and I'm trying to put together a list of launch titles (supposedly there might be as many as 22!)


UK gaming magazines of the day are really hazy, because obviously having watched the system be delayed for two years, they started talking about import titles, I.e. when were things released in North America or Japan (and priority was still on Amigas/Atari STs). My understanding is that the system was delayed a few times - it was originally penciled in for a Q1/Q2 1990 release (about March/April time, possibly even in 1989 at some point) but was pushed back due to manufacturing problems.

Nobody really talked about the system before 1991 because it wasn't a 16-bit computer, but there's a few clues

http://archive.org/s...2up/search/mega

supposedly the Mega Drive was due to launch in the UK in September, at the "European Computer Entertainment Show" (ECES) which no longer exists and is poorly documented. That year it was held on September 15th-16th, which from what I can see, was a weekend (so sometime between the 17th and 21st? I hear Fridays are big days for gaming in the UK (like Tuesdays in the US)). It's also the same period in which the Game Boy launched, supposedly (Wikipedia says the PAL release for that was the 28th - a Friday)

Anyway things I know

- £189.99 would get you a console with Altered Beast. That makes Altered Beast a launch title, obviously
- Games were released in October and November - there are only 30 days in November, so if the internet is right, that makes all of them launch titles. That's why I think the internet is wrong
- Space Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade were sold as "budget" games for about £10 less than normal, on the basis that they were older (1988 in Japan)

the other issue is that obviously "Europe" as a region isn't very... precise (or at least, it wasn't in 1990). The United Kingdom release was likely different than the French or German or Spanish one - different distributors, language barriers, logistical issues etc. This is certainly the case with the Master System - I'm curious to know if it affects the Mega Drive significantly too.

it's difficult to find concrete answers - it was a world dominated by Amigas and Atari STs. Dedicated consoles were seen as niche systems for kids - real men messed around with 329343289342 floppy disks and broken cassettes, so this stuff just wasn't covered. Or at least, not until Sonic turned up.

Hardcore Gaming 101 pointed something out a few weeks ago
http://blog.hardcore...l-1-outrun.html

Turns out the copy of OutRun in Yu Suzuki Game Works Vol. 1 on the Dreamcast isn't merely an emulated version of the arcade original as people suspected - it's an updated "HD" version of the game, with good chunks of the graphics being redrawn for the 640x480 resolution. I originally thought only the car was different (altered so that it doesn't resemble a Ferrari Testarossa anymore), but turns out backgrounds were replaced too. The result is smoother gameplay, and you can now read some of the signs in the intro!

For the record, this is the same version of OutRun seen in the Shenmue II.


HG101 can't confirm whether similar techniques have been applied to After Burner II or Space Harrier, only that the copies of Power Drift and Hang-On seem to be straight ports. YouTube doesn't help because the quality of the videos up there are crap.

Sega Saturns of all shapes and sizes were sold in Brazil. Some were imported from Japan, others from the US, and all were tweaked and localised by Tectoy for the new audience. We have a bunch of them documented

But I've found some strange Saturn colour schmes in my recent internet travels




Black shell, grey buttons, grey cartridge slot? That's weird. And that bottom one has a pink open button, which leads me to think these are odd hybrids of western/Japanese stock.


Did Tectoy's do this, or were they modified by their owners for some... bizarre reason? The Saturns themselves are legitimate Tectoy-branded machines (I.e. they're not unlicensed Saturn clones), but either someone has poor artistic taste or Tectoy were really lazy when putting these systems together.

came across this in my internet travels

Super Thunder Blade for Windows PCs. Only seems to have been released in Japan, and judging by the Windows 98/XP stickers I'm seeing, I'm guessing it turned up around the turn of the century.

I can't find any information about this one. I don't think even Sega acknowledge its existence. Judging from blurry screenshots on the back cover I don't think it differs much from the Mega Drive version, but the thing baffles me - Sega were releasing compilations of Mega Drive games around this time, so what makes Super Thunder Blade so special that it gets its own disc? Is it even a game at all?

any ideas?