Altered Beast on Genesis
There were few days quite as exciting as the day that a child first opened their Sega Genesis on Christmas and introduced to the world of 16-bit gaming. The new fancy contoured controllers, the sleek and futuristic design of the console itself, and the majesty that came along with far smaller cartridges that somehow managed to be better than their NES counterparts were all pretty mind-blowing. You couldn't get it hooked up to the TV fast enough.
Then there was the game that came with everyone's Genesis during the initial launch. I am referring of course to Altered Beast.
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The game functionality wasn't anything particularly inventive. It was a side-scrolling fighting game and this had been done dozens of times on NES already. What made this game special was that Genesis was establishing itself right out of the gate as being a more "grown up" gaming system.
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While it wasn't exactly a mortal-kombat-esque gore-fest or anything. There was no denying that this was not a cutesy cartoon-filled game the likes of which Nintendo had gotten us so accustomed to. The game also spoke actual words to you. There weren't many of them and we had heard a few things said to us in NES games but they were odd robotic sounding . In Altered Beast, it sounded just like a person even though it only said a few things - "power up!" and "welcome to your doom!"
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Now that I've said how mind-blowing it was to play a game of this magnitude in 1989 let me get to a few negatives, the main of which is the fact that Altered Beast was not a good game.
The music never changed, the oncoming horde of enemies were almost mindless in their attack patterns and the character you controlled moved like he had pooped his pants at all times. Sure it was nice to be able to transform into a werewolf (or whatever that was), a bear, a tiger, and a miniature dragon but the gameplay kind of lacked any real substance. This combined with the fact that the entire game was only about 15 minutes long from start to finish and well, I dont think that even 11 year old me stayed interested for very long.
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the game recieved mostly negative reviews and Next Generation magazine stated that Altered Beast "sold thousands because it was one of the only games available" and many lists have it ranked near the top of "worst Genesis (Mega Drive) games ever made." I can say in retrospect that I agree with this analysis. It was a pretty crap game, but that doesn't change the fact that it was exactly what we were looking for at the time as it showed off the capabilities of the new Sega Machine and at least for most American purchasers, we didn't feel as though we had paid for it since it was an non-optional pack-in game for the initial release.
Watching the above video reminds me about how monotonous the game actually was and reminds me why me and my siblings really didn't play this game very much once there was an alternative game in our library.
Haven't times changed? My first computer was an Amiga 500 and I recall having a Nintendo 64 back in the day (Remember Duck Hunt? Lol) I'm not a gamer anymore, probably wasn't much of one anyway, but the games these days are on a whole other level right?
a lot of the games today are more complex than i am prepared to dedicate to a game. The worst situation is when you get to a really difficult section such as a boss that you can't defeat nor can you choose to leave and powerup a bit to return later. Then out of frustration you put the game down for a week then when you return you don't remember the controls because there are 16 buttons or something. Then for me, i just end up not ever playing the game again :P
Haha, yep that'd keep me away for sure!
I'd play Ghost Recon with two of my bro's who live in Finland with super-fast internet. I'm in Australia where the internet is powered by a wombat and two goanna's on a treadmill so I'd be peeking around a building in Tbilisi in some scenario of the game and spot them across the way...I'd be aiming up and then SPLAT my brains would be all over the screen after they ran up behind me and shot me in the head.
The lag wasn't good so ended up just playing by myself. 😂
I actually 1st played the arcade version before i got it for the genesis. The arcade version had cleaner graphics and sounded better. I never did beat it in the arcade but when i bought it for the genesis I beat it and hated how the game seemed a little repetitive with the "you gain the power and then lose it at the end making the boss dude stronger". Hell i was worried at the end of the game the boss dude would be jacked up on muscles to the point he could barely move! Hell i think he had like 12 of those orbs absorbed into him before the final battle.
i had seen this one in the arcade as well and well, it isn't surprising when arcade games looked better than console versions. I played it a few times but it was a quarter muncher for sure. The graphics in the arcade were pretty solid and it would draw a crowd around the machine in the arcade because the graphics were so much better and the sound was amazing. I think i watched other people play more than I played myself.