Top Ten First-Hand Nostalgia Sega Genesis Characters (6-3)

Yesterday, I offered up the 10th through 7th best 1HN (First-Hand Nostalgia) Sega Genesis characters based on my personal experience with Genesis games. As I stated in that post, I only included characters or in-game depictions from games that I have played, so a lot of classic characters didn't make the list, like Earthworm Jim, Knuckles, and others. Let's continue the list from number six:

6) Barry Sanders (Madden 93). You could probably include any Barry Sanders from any Madden or non-Madden football game on this list because Barry Sanders always had superhuman speed and quickness, but I must include the Barry Sanders from Madden 93 for one personal reason. If you select the Pro-Form formation when you are cycling through offensive plays, and then pick (and the name of the play escapes me) a play in which the right H-Back (Barry Sanders, in this case) goes into motion to his right, streaks up 10 yards or so and then goes to the post, you would be running one of my favorite all-time plays. With good hands and awesome speed, I could pass to Barry Sanders almost every time and gain major yards. Oh, and pitching right from Pro-Form was effective with Sanders, too. Anyway, Madden 93 was an outstanding entry in the Madden library, and Barry Sanders was a money player.

5) Frank Showtone (PGA European Tour Golf). Already, you can see that EA Sports games figure prominently on my list; that's because I was a huge EA Sports guy, which I've stated ad nauseum. Anyway, I was such a big EA Sports fan that I even bought PGA European Tour Golf, which is actually a solid golf game for the Genesis. Now, there were many great European golfers in that game, like Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, and Colin Montgomery, so why do I mention Frank Showtone? And... what the hay, who on Earth is Frank Showtone?! If you can't find him on the Internet, it's because he was created by my friend Ed, who was one with whom I had many of my Genesis adventures. To make a very long (but interesting) story short, Ed was on a "Frank Showtone" kick, like he was some lounge singer or something, and he decided to use that name for his in-game avatar. As it turned out, Frank Showtone took on a life of his own, won a few tournaments, and the legend grew. Of course, Frank Showtone has a new distinction: he's the only user-created character on this list. The legend continues!

4) John Madden (various). John Madden was not a playable character, but an in-game non-player character that, much like his real-life counterpart, added color commentary to any Madden football game. Quotes like "Boom!" and "He'll remember that number" would be repeated at least three or four times in a course of a twenty-minute game. The amazing thing was that (also like his real-life counterpart) John Madden's voice NEVER got old. After a while, hearing his sometimes ill-timed quips took on a surreal, humorous quality and often punctuated playful trash-talking. Ed was especially adept at goading me by pointing and laughing at me right after one of his defenders laid the boom on my running back for a loss. BOOM!

3) Brett Hull (NHL 95). When I first started playing the NHL franchise of EA Sports games in 1993, I became a fan of the St. Louis Blues. Why? Well, for the lamest reason possible: I liked the color blue. As I played NHL 94 more, I became not only a bigger fan of the Blues and of ice hockey in general, but also of Brett Hull, who was the sharp-shooting right-winger. In NHL 94, he was excellent, but when I graduated to NHL 95, Brett Hull was absolutely spectacular because one-timers were especially effective in NHL 95. To get the most out of Hull, I used to put him at center on my top line, Brendan Shanahan on the right wing, and Tony Amonte (who I had to acquire from the Blackhawks) on the left wing. With that line, Hull would score three to four goals per game with alarming regularity, and the strategy was simple: streak up one side of the ice with Amonte or Shanahan with the puck, and then with Brett Hull trailing, pass the puck across to him and tap C to shoot just before he received it. The one-timer animation was triggered, and Hull would top-shelf the puck into the net. NHL 95 was THE high point for Hull on the Genesis because EA Sports did something to NHL 96 to weaken the effectiveness of the one-timer. This is why I cite Brett Hull from NHL 95 as my third-best Genesis "character" ever.

Keep an eye out for number two in the next post!

Top Ten First-Hand Nostalgia Sega Genesis Characters (10-7)

You know, a common perception of Top Ten lists is that they are highly opinionated, self-indulgent, and personal. I mean, why would I want to know what some guy thought about which ten Van Halen songs were the best of all time? Well, actually, I often find other people's Top Ten lists to be exceptionally intriguing, depending on the subject matter; I get much insight from what others think about stuff in which I am interested.

With that in mind, I have prepared a Top Ten list of the best video game characters I have personally experienced in Sega Genesis games. Why the Genesis? Because I owned one back when it was relevant... and I still own the same one! Now, there are many games I have not played that feature such classic characters as Knuckles, Earthworm Jim, Ristar, Vectorman, Sparkster (from Rocket Knight Adventures), Strider, and the like. I did not include those characters because I have never experienced them first-hand.

Despite this, I do have characters like Sonic, Ecco, and those dudes from Gunstar Heroes on my list, but I also have several surprises (including some in-game depictions of real people) on the list with which you may vehemently disagree (By the way, I will break up the list into four separate blog entries so that you won't be stuck with reading one LONG post). So, here goes -- my Top Ten First-Hand Nostalgia Sega Genesis Characters (10-7):

10) Those Dudes from Gunstar Heroes. These two dudes, whom I will dub Red and Blue, were cute sprites with angry faces that threw, kicked, punched, and blew away any baddie that they encountered. Beyond what they did, these characters were as dull as dirt -- they were just angry dudes that destroyed stuff. Maybe they were angry about the injustices faced by their home planet Gunstar, but the characters were bombastic, monotonous, and gratuitously violent... much like the game itself.

9) Marcus Allbäck (FIFA 97). Back in the day, I was a huge EA Sports game guy, and FIFA 97 found its way into my Genesis library. One of the first teams with which I played was an Allsvenskan (Swedish League) team called Örgryte. On that team was a super-speedy striker named M Allbäck. I didn't know his real first name, so I used to call him "Mats," based on famous tennis player Mats Wilander. But I would later discover that Marcus Allbäck was not only a real player, but he would eventually become an important player for the Swedish national side and play a key role in the European success of FC Copenhagen... Anyway, going back to 1996, Allbäck was a speed merchant who became my most prolific goalscorer and the one player I would often try to acquire whenever I played with another team.

8) Transformable Mecha (Herzog Zwei). Okay, could any American kid who didn't speak German pronounce this game's title right back in the day? My friend Ed and I used to pronounce it "Herzog Zweee," just as one may process American English orthography based on the American English phonemic library and phonological constraints. However, the actual German pronunciation is "Heut-sock tsvai" (IPA: ˈhɛɐ̯tsok ˈtsvai). Pronunciation aside, the transformable mecha controlled by the player was undeniably awesome: you used it to deliver and drop tactical units, you could fly it around to scout what the enemy was doing, and you could transform it into a giant robot to blast away the enemy's tactical units. It was a versatile "character" that was the poster child of one of the first real-time strategy games ever produced, making the character and the game underrated classics.

7) Ecco (Ecco the Dolphin). We all know Ecco -- he's the super-smart and courageous dolphin who has been charged with finding out to where all his sea creature buddies were abducted. He is beautifully rendered, swims fast, has a cool and effective nose attack, and can get some mad hops out of the water. Despite these positives, the plodding, pensive pace of Ecco the Dolphin may be too dull for some, unless you have hours of time to search for answers to arcane puzzles and explore narrow caves and vast expanses of open ocean. Ecco the Dolphin was and is one of the few non-sports games I've played on the Genesis, which is why Ecco rates so highly. Nonetheless, the game may be worth a look, even if the character isn't "exciting."

Stay tuned for 6 to 3!

Nothing's Wrong with VHS

If you are over 10 years old, you may remember the days when movies and recorded TV shows were found not on shiny compact disc or digital video disc media, but on a black rectangular monolith of a cassette with labels on the front and spine, and two white spools inside. Yes, it was a video cassette, or a Video Head System (VHS) cassette and it prevailed for a little over 20 years as THE primary means by which one not only rented, bought, and watched movies, but also "taped" them off cable TV. No, not Laserdisc or even Betamax, but VHS!

As many of us are aware, VHS cassettes had their issues. They were sensitive to heat and light, wayward Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) could munch them up with reckless abandon, and it was reported that they had a limited shelf life with rumors stating the lifespan to be anything from 5 to 20 years. Whatever the "true" lifespan was, VHS cassettes were also known for poor playback as the result of overuse or the aforementioned munchage, resulting in white horizontal lines that could sometimes be warded off by adjusting the "tracking" on the VCR. Oh, and compared to DVDs and Blu-Ray media today, VHS cassettes, with its spools of magnetically stored audiovisual data, provide a markedly mediocre viewing experience.

So, what's so good about VHS? What good things could the Retrobeliever possibly say about VHS? Well, I have five reasons why VHS cassettes are still useful and viable! Here goes:

5) No scratches! You can rent or borrow a VHS cassette from a library or store and still watch that movie, even if the tape is messed up at parts. But, if you try to watch a scratched-up DVD... it can be absolutely unwatchable if there are too many deep scratches. Give me white lines over pixelated freezes!

4) Splicing. If a stretch of a VHS tape has been munched by a VCR, you can splice the tape, re-tape the tape, and watch it with only a little bit of disruption. I used to do this sometimes, especially when my cheap Logix VCR would choke on my tapes. DVDs? You'd have to polish the DVD to get out hindering scratches.

3) They're cheap! In 2011, you can buy some decent VHS movies at a Salvation Army thrift store for a buck. That's right... one buck.

2) Easy recording. With VCRs, recording was as easy as switching your TV to VCR, navigating to the channel you wanted using the VCR (or your cable box), and pressing Record on your remote. Sure, you can record to DVD, but you need DVD-Rs or DVD-RWs. You didn't have to worry about such distinctions with VHSes.

1) Exclusive content. Even in 2001, there are certain TV shows you cannot easily get on DVD, such as old 80s cartoons. In other words, you still need a VCR to play those old tapes of shows and movies that have not yet been produced on DVD. I'm looking at you, Max Headroom!

Okay, I'm really stretching credibility by touting the wonders of VHS. Honestly, I would say that DVD has completely outmoded VHS with superior playback, navigability, durability, and portability. However, I can say one great thing about VHS, upon which I touched with number 5: if you borrow a VHS cassette from a library, you're almost always assured of being able to play the video from beginning to end, even if a few parts are mangled. On the other hand, if you borrow a DVD from a library, you have a good chance of having such a scratched-up copy that you can barely watch the movie without skipping large parts of it. That was the magic of VHS -- mangled tape could be slightly improved with the flattening that occurred when the tape was fed through video heads.