Retrogaming

After the Sega Game Gear and before Sony's PSP, there was one other portable system that held its own against the might of Nintendo's Game Boy. Or, well, it could have if it lived longer than a year.

For about a year the Neo Geo Pocket Color was the coolest portable on the market. But then people started to hear the word "advance" and started to realize that there was no way the Neo Geo Pocket could ever trump Nintendo. But that's okay, in it's short like the Neo Geo Pocket pumped out a number of high quality titles that capitalized on their many old games. But it wasn't enough, so we got to wondering: what did we miss by not having the Neo Geo Pocket Color around still? Here's a lot of ten games we should have had, but never did. -Cyril Lachel

It wasn't necessarily that much better than the other consoles on the market at the time, it was just a hell of a lot more expensive. Not only that, but if you managed to somehow survive the $650 price tag the console hit you with, you'd still have to shell out another $200-$300 per game if you wanted anything to play on your shiny new console. It goes without saying that most gamers passed on the Neo Geo system, but the story still managed to have a happy ending. Over the years the Neo Geo consoles and arcade cabinets have become quite collectible around the internet and now these wonderful titles are getting a second chance on the Wii Virtual Console service.

Neo Geo Pocket was SNK's first attempt SNK to enter the handheld market. Released in 1998 in Japan, the first console got poor sales, and within a year was upgraded to the Neo Geo Pocket Colour, the console that we all should have come to love.

Oh, man… Looking back, 1999 was such an awesome year. The Sega Dreamcast came out on 9/9/99, the threat of Y2K was just around the corner, and Neo Geo released their first and only handheld system, the Neo Geo Pocket. Sure, it may not be as well known as the Game Boy or Game Gear, and it may not have had crazy hardware specs like the Atari Lynx, but it had some damn fine games.

In the world of action-RPGs, Falcom's Ys series is the sad underdog. Despite the fact that the Japanese practically have a annual holiday for it, Ys has remained unfortunately obscure outside of its homeland. Maybe this due to the burden of being saddled with a slightly unpronounceable name (hint: it sounds like "ease"), and its full title - Ancient Ys Vanished Omens - is a grammatical quandary of tremendous proportions. Or maybe it's because they never really appeared on mainsteam systems in America - the original games were released on the Master System and Turbografx-16 CD, hardly places for them to truly show gamers what they're all about - fast paced action and adventure in faraway lands, damsels in distress, and some of the best music in the history of all video gaming.

When I played the Sega Master System for the first time in Macy's in 1987, I had already owned the NES for about three months. The first game I played (or watched, I can't remember) was Choplifter. After seeing how amazing the graphics were compared to the NES, I knew I had to have the SMS A.S.A.P. Shortly after, I bought one in Crazy Eddie and it became my favorite system for the next two and a half years (until the Genesis and Turbo Grafx 16 came out). While it never really became popular, due to almost no third party support and the near-monopoly the NES had (which outsold it by about 12 to 1!), it had some truly outstanding now-classic games, and the graphics and accessories (liquid crystal 3-D glasses and the best light gun at the time) were way ahead of their time. Sadly, I still dream about what could have been if things had went right. Anyway, it's going to be extremely tough to come up with a top 10 list, but here I go...

I had such a good time listing off my favorite NES games, that I just couldn't resist making a list of my top games for my favorite system - the Super Nintendo. I know the SNES isn't as "retro" as the NES, but just because it's not as old, doesn't mean it's not as good. As you can see, this list consists of 25 games, rather then 20 like my last one. I decided to make it a little longer so I could fit a few more of my favorites in. And, although I like the N64, Playstation, PS2, etc., I definitely won't be making a top list for those systems (not only because they're not retro, but they just aren't as special to me as the NES and SNES).

It was 1989. Nintendo's NES had reigned supreme in the videogame market for nearly five years, and it was time for a new system to take over the throne. Sega's Master System, while graphically superior to the NES, failed to make any kind of lasting impression in the U.S. market (although it was very popular in Europe), and Sega knew that their next system would not only have to be superior to everything else out there, but they'd have to have a lot of third-party developers lined up. The lack of third-party support is cited as the main cause of the Master System's demise.

Here we are another year, and another list for you to look at. Seriously why do we need to show off a list of games for a 16 bit console that most people call the 2nd best for its time? Because it OWNED, that's why. The Sega Genesis was when gaming went from toy to fanism, where lines were drawn in the sand and you either wore the blue or the red. If you were in LA at the time, you could not go into a red neighborhood without being mocked about blast processing. Riots ensued and musicals were written (...c'mon no one saw that piece I did 8 years ago?) and to this day the Genesis does what the Nintendon't, and by that I mean make good Saturday morning cartoons.

The votes are in, the sums have been done, and finally, after much blood, sweat and broken calculators we can bring you the results of the first Amiga Report Top 100 (hereafter known as the AR100).

Okay, I get it. Many of you were not of the "Genesis does" crowd like I was as a kid. That doesn't mean I do not appreciate the Super Nintendo. I have both systems, I was a little late to the game that's all. As a kid I had the pleasure of bargain shopping for the SNES at the end of its run, plus all the trades I managed to do in school combined for me playing literally hundreds of games for the system. With my massive knowledge of this system I thought to do a follow up to my other Top 25 games list by choosing its main rival. Why 25? Well its only fair that I keep the number the same from my previous list that's all.

My goal when researching this was to make it so any games or MIDI files I played in windows sound like I remember them sounding on my old 486's SoundBlaster Pro 2.0.

April 18, 2008 - For a system that tanked against the NES, the Sega Master System sure has some fans. After Tuesday's RetroCity podcast, I heard from a lot of listeners and readers that harbor nothing but good will toward Sega's 8-bit console. The Master System is also now on the Virtual Console, getting some long overdue love from gamers that may have passed over the console due to the vastly superior marketing of the NES or, well, the awesome-ness of Super Mario Bros.

From Computer Gaming World's November 1996 Anniversary Edition

After producing many games for early home videogame consoles, Sega decided to develop a console system of its own. The SG-1000 and Mark III were available in Japan in the mid-1980s, but when Sega witnessed the early success of the Nintendo Entertainment System, the company knew it wanted a share of the American console market. So, Sega redesigned the Mark III, renamed it the Sega Master System (SMS for short), and released it in 1986, not long after the NES first came out. Unfortunately for Sega, the SMS wiped out in the wake of Nintendo's wave of popularity.

Digital Press Online is dedicated to the "Pac-rats" among video gamers... short attention spans, library-sized collections, consoles precariously wired in spider-web fashion... Sound like you? Check around - we cover just about everything "retro" including Atari, Intellivision, ColecoVision, Vectrex, Odyssey, Nintendo, and Sega Master System as well as all of the most recent consoles.

In an industry where an obese plumber can become a cultural icon, it's no wonder that in video games, weird is normal. However nutty they get, these oddities were never as strange as the ones for the Atari 2600. Ironically the most bizarre of these came out around the crash of the video game industry, causing most of them to go unnoticed in the rubble of a once great gaming console. Take a look weirdest Games you'll ever see, all for the Atari 2600.