2012 has been the year of sequels that I thought would never happen.

First Kid Icarus: Uprising, and now, Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, which is a direct sequel to Sega’s Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. While Kid Icarus was a whole new experience, Epic Mickey stays very much true to its 2D side-scrolling roots, with a bit of its modern namesake thrown in.

The nods to the original games are strong: The jumping/bonking sound effects, the little mushroom enemies, certain animations, the cheery music from the original game’s first level…. The developers were fans of the 1990 classic, and it shows. This game took me back to a much younger age, happy with my Genesis.

That’s not to say that it plays exactly like Castle of Illusion. There’s some Epic Mickey influence as well, most notably the magical paintbrush with its ability to create and destroy the environment. It’s not as heavy as in the console Epic Mickey games, but what it does is clever and well used. But basic drawing talent is needed in order to make properly functioning items. At least there’s no time limit or enemies attacking you while you’re trying Read the rest of this entry

The Sega fan is/was such a different creature than the Nintendo fan. For the 1980′s/1990′s, you chose one side: Nintendo or Sega. I made like Switzerland, and actually enjoyed both. There was always something “edgy” about Sega. Their games had “attitude”, which was so popular in the 1990′s, and so different that what passes for those terms today.

The Sega Master System, though lacking the 3rd party support that Nintendo had (largely due to the near-monopoly The Big N had on the gaming industry back in the day), they still produced some quirky and unique titles, one of the most standout being the original Phantasy Star, which blew away most 16-bit offerings. And who could forget Alex Kidd and Fantasy Zone? Sega also had a number of notable arcade titles, such as Space Harrier, Shinobi, Outrun, Altered Beast, Golden Axe….

But Sega didn’t really find their foothold until the Genesis. It was here where we saw sequels to most of those beloved titles, as well as introducing newcomers like Ecco the Dolphin, ToeJam & Earl, Streets of Rage, and of course, Sonic the Hedgehog.

32X and Sega CD struggled, as did the Saturn, but it still Read the rest of this entry

Considering that the online gaming sites are covering the event, I suppose I may as well, since I was there from the start.

I’ve been a Sega fan for a long time. So much so that I was only one of two people in my hometown who owned a Sega Master System. Oh sure, I owned the NES and all that came with that (the Master System came as a gift from Grandma), but I was well aware of Shinobi, Space Harrier, Altered Beast and Phantasy Star long before many of my peers.

I got the Genesis in 1989 for my 13th birthday, again being the first to adopt Sega’s new system. It was a short-lived “victory” for me as two of my grandparents died a week later (my Mom’s Mom and my Dad’s Dad), so I had a blissfully unaware week prior to those losses, and in the long run, playing games after the fact kept my mind focused on other things. While this is a little more personal than I usually delve on here, I figured it was only fair to share the context of where i was in that time in my life.

Of course, I got Read the rest of this entry