You know, it’s a weird thing.
The older I get, the older the games get, that I like.
That’s partly because that’s how time works.
It’s also because games are changing and turning into these weird, elaborate, overproduced,
movie-wannabe…things, look, games are just changing.
And I’m changing, too.
Into an old person.
And that’s what old people do, they resist change, and calcify their beliefs.
Which is also how time works.
And that’s also why I love going back to games like this.
It’s Williams Arcade’s Greatest Hits, for the SEGA Genesis.
You damn kids and all your…
You, damn, kids.
And you know, one of the things I love about these old arcade compilations…is that they
are, themselves old.
Like this one was released in 1995, it’s 20 years old.
And yet even then, these arcade games were considered old-school and retro and “Hey,
let’s put them on a cartridge, ‘cause they’re old-school and retro.”
That’s old on three different levels.
It’s, like…how much older could it be?
And the answer is none.
None more old.
Spinal Tap.
So there are five games here.
There’s Defender, Defender II, Joust, Robotron and Sinistar.
Which is, like…a hall of fame ballot, of video games.
It’s ridiculous.
And as with any collection like this, where you’re taking games from their original
platform and you’re putting them on a different platform…the results are kind of mixed,
there’s some good, there’s some bad…
There’s no cut scenes, though.
“But what’s my motivation?
Why am I in this spaceship?
Why am I shooting aliens?”
Uh, because you’re in a spaceship and there are aliens, and your mom gave you quarters.
What the f*ck more motivation do you need?
“But where did she get the quarters?”
Anyway, Defender and Defender II are pretty awesome, they both play great.
Maybe a little floaty, but…I mean, I didn’t have a problem.
And I’m terrible at these games.
Actually, I think this is the furthest I’ve ever gotten in Defender, and that’s because
you can adjust the settings.
You can turn down the difficulty to something less arcadey and more reasonable, you can
give yourself more lives to start out with…
Turns out, when these games aren’t total dicks, they’re totally awesome.
Still never saved any people, though.
I always, just…I can’t catch the people.
Everyone in Defender dies, when I play.
Either from alien mutation, or extreme trauma, from falling from spaceships, and splattering
onto the frozen, lifeless, wastelands…of deep space.
You know, when you put it that way, Defender sounds brutal.
Now that’s a cut scene.
I think my next favorite here is probably Sinistar.
This is another one that’s made the move to the Genesis pretty gracefully, it plays
pretty well.
And I guess Joust plays well, too…in the sense that it plays like Joust.
Which, actually, I’ve never thought plays that well.
Like, I’ve always been more of a Balloon Fight guy.
To me, that’s one case where the copycat plays better than the original.
But still, I mean…it’s Joust, it’s fine.
Which brings us to Robotron.
Which brings us to the game’s one real problem.
See, in Robotron, you move and shoot in different directions, which works best with two joysticks.
The SEGA Genesis has none joysticks.
And the d-pad works okay for moving…but the shooting is kind of a mess.
You have to push a button to rotate your aim one way, and push another to rotate the other
way.
And then you push reset, ‘cause that sucks, this sucks.
I’ll tell you what, though.
Robotron aside, this is a pretty great little collection, for 1995.
It’s a bunch of classics, ported over in fine form, they look good, they play well,
they sound like the past, which is awesome…the past was awesome, in gaming.
Future, I’m not wild about, but that’s how old people work.
And this is how video games used to work.
Minus the cheating, because this is kind of cheating.
It’s Williams Arcade’s Greatest Hits, for the SEGA Genesis.
Big thanks to our dear, close, personal friend Marc, from Fresh Meadows, New York, for sending
this to the show.