Welcome back to The Splintering’s Jolly Jinglings holiday event! Today we’re going to celebrate by taking a look at possibly the Christmasiest of all Christmas games! It’s difficult to believe that the classic playground war of “Nintendo vs. SEGA” was officially decided nearly 2 decades ago! I mean, seriously! 2020 is RIGHT around the corner! Making me feel old over
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Welcome back to another SEGA Dreamcast Anniversary here at The Splintering! Since Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue is one of the most iconic games on the Dreamcast platform, it has to be included with any Dreamcast-themed celebration. Since the first two Shenmue games are awash in lovely ladies, it occurred to us that there may be one to match up with every
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Welcome back to our SEGA Dreamcast Anniversary celebration at The Splintering! Today we’re reviewing Playing at the Next Level in which author Ken Horowitz details the history of SEGA of America with an emphasis on SEGA’s U.S. development teams and some of their more notable games.* Starting with the ill-fated Master System and continuing all the way until SEGA’s swan
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It’s 9 September, which means it is the anniversary of the SEGA Dreamcast’s U.S. release. I’m now going to attempt a fair review of Sonic Adventure, one of the most divisive games in SEGA’s back-catalogue. While it was received very well upon its original release in 1999, its many flaws have been exhaustively laid out since. How to proceed? Should
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Every now and again, we at The Splintering are going to lean on our mascot, Chomp the Termite, to go out into the world of myth and fiction to get the stories that we non-fictional types just can’t get. September 9th marks the anniversary of the SEGA Dreamcast’s release in the U.S., so Chomp thought he’d dust off his old
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Today, The Splintering is reviewing the most famous of all of the SEGA Genesis launch titles: Altered Beast! I know pretty much everyone interested in classic gaming knows about the original pack-in for one of the greatest consoles of all time… and most people do not have the nicest things to say about it, either. However, I am one of
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It’s still thinking… Just in time for SEGA Dreamcast’s 25th anniversary (sort of… the campaign will end near the 9/9/99 US release mark), independent artist and comic book creator Brenden Swan launched a crowdfunding campaign for Am I Only Dreaming: Encyclopedia of all NA Dreamcast Games. The project is a unique art book featuring illustrations for each of the 200-ish
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Strictly Limited Games (the other small-run physical video game publisher) recently announced that preorders for limited boxed editions of Steel Empire – Chronicles will begin on Sunday, 9 April (yep, Easter Sunday). This collection includes three versions of Steel Empire (SEGA Genesis, Nintendo GBA, and the 2019 remake), as well as a bonus game Over Horizon (NES), which was never
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Today we’re all celebrating the Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection,* a new retro compilation of all of SEGA’s Wonder Boy and Monster World games from the 80s and 90s released to mark the 35th anniversary of the series. Weird number, but who’s complaining? If you’re thinking that this review seems awfully familiar, there’s a very good reason, as ININ Games published a Wonder Boy Collection less than a
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It’s short for Isabelle, methinks. Publisher Ratalaika Games recently released the retro-inspired 2D platformer Intrepid Izzy for modern consoles.* Developed by Senile Team, Interpid Izzy started its life as a small-scale indie project for the SEGA Dreamcast successfully crowdfunded in 2017. While the game is fairly light on plot, the titular “Intrepid Izzy” seems to be some kind of explorer who happens
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Welcome back to Jolly Jinglings, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all dancing sugar plums, fairy type or otherwise. In 1992, “Batmania” was in full effect. The success of Tim Burton’s Batman film in 1989 had reignited mainstream interest in the Dark Knight, what followed was a marketing blitz of toys, school supplies, breakfast cereal, and every other piece of cinematic synergy that
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Welcome back to the Festival of Dread, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things strange in you neighborhood. Today we’re going to take a look at Ghostbusters, a side-scrolling action game released for the SEGA Genesis in 1990. Developed by Compile (Guardian Legend, Blazing Lazers) and published by SEGA, Ghostbusters is based on the characters from the movie of the same name. That’s
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Welcome back to the Festival of Dread, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things inhuman and otherworldly. Halloween is mostly known for ghouls, goblins, and the like, but aliens are sometimes wrapped up in the festivities due to their often frightening portrayal in pop culture and – you know – their propensity for probing. If any representation of space aliens
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Konnichiwa minnasan to the Dread Matsuri, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things 暗い and 怖い (“kurai” dark and “kowai” scary). In any case, today we’re going to take a look at Kenseiden, a genre-blending, side-scrolling action RPG developed and published by SEGA in 1988 for the Master System. Indeed, you will all be subjected to my surface-level, one semester’s worth of community college Japanese
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*Note: This interview is being reposted from a previous Festival of Dread event. Welcome back to the Festival of Dread, The Splintering‘s month-long celebration of all things wicked and bewitching! Every now and again, we at The Splintering are going to lean on our mascot, Chomp the Termite, to go out into the world of myth and fiction to get
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Of all the games I’ve owned, sold, repurchased, etc., over the years, I’ve never sold any of my original Splatterhouse games. Why? Because braining demons with blunt objects and watching their unholy essence spray from their freshly-cracked skulls is good ol’ family fun. Wholesome shit, am I right? My personal experience with the Splatterhouse series went like this: Splatterhouse (TG-16 version), Splatterhouse 3, and finally Splatterhouse
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With all of the Zelda, Pikmin and Goldeneye news during Tuesday’s Nintendo Direct, you could perhaps be forgiven if you missed out on some sweet retro shoot ‘em up news… perhaps. The vertical-scrolling 2D classic Radiant Silvergun is now available on the Nintendo Switch eShop. Originally developed by Treasure for the SEGA Saturn, Radiant Silvergun is credited as being one
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things octogenarian… from a 20th century point of view. The SEGA Genesis is largely remembered as a 90s gaming powerhouse, but it was actually released in 1989. That makes a handful of the console’s early games babies of the 80s. Truxton (aka 達人 or Tatsujin in Japan… which means something like “expert”) is one
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the invention of the hurdy-gurdy. Today we’re going to take a look at Cyborg Hunter, one of the very few third party (sort of) games released for the SEGA Master System. Cyborg Season? Developed by SEGA and published in the United States by Activision in 1988, Cyborg Hunter
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since We’re marking this festive occasion with an all-new installment of Box Art Bombshells, where we reveal the completely fabricated super really-real events that inspired some of the wackiest and weirdest box art from gaming history. This time, we’re revealing the hidden truth behind Black Belt, the martial arts action game released on
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of everything 80s. Derp. Despite being primarily famous as a 90s console the SEGA Genesis (aka Mega Drive) was actually released in 1989, so the launch games and other early titles can still lay claim to being entertainment artifacts of the 80s. One such launch game is Thunder Force II. I know what
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My personal Wonder Boy Collection is already complete, as I like to think of myself as one of the Wonder Boy series’ biggest fans. My very first game (outside of the pack-in Hang-On/Safari Hunt) was the original Wonder Boy for the Sega Master System. While my brother picked up Alex Kidd in Miracle World (wise beyond his years), and my
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The first Jurassic Park game was a huge blockbuster on the Genesis, and SEGA quickly tried to recapture that success. Not content with waiting for a true movie sequel, Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition is a “what if” type of story which takes place in an alternate timeline picking up immediately after the events of the first film. Rampage Edition is
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QUByte and PIKO Interactive recently revealed that “cult classic” Jim Power: The Lost Dimension is coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, and the Super Nintendo, SEGA Genesis, and original NES. Originally released in 1993 under the title Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3D, the game is a sci-fi side-scroller with a unique parallax scrolling effect and a punishing level of
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Avid SEGA/Sonic fan and friend of the site Zealous FoX has never been one to pull punches when it comes to expressing his opinion on gaming. He recently unleashed a righteous tirade targeting modern game rating regimes (both the ESRB and Pegi), and we at The Splintering felt like it was worth posting in its entirety here (with permission, of
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A 2015 interview with a Skies of Arcadia translator has recently started to gain new life online via social media. The interview is from a now defunct fan site titled ESOArcadia (archived here), in which Klayton Vorlick, a translator who worked on Skies of Arcadia (aka Eternal Arcadia, SEGA Dreamcast 2000), discusses how the team approached the localization process. To
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Streets of Rage 2. Geez, what a joke. I know a lot of you SEGA dorks out there just love your Streets of Rage 2. I myself still have my original Genesis cartridge as a relic from the 16-bit console wars, but I have to tell you, it’s not as good as you remember. Don’t believe me? Come along, friends, and
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Ratalaika Games has been on a roll with their efforts to introduce old-school shooters to modern audiences. Following October’s release of Gleylancer, Ratalaika is once again tapping the 16-bit archive to bring Gynoug (aka Wings of Wor in the US) back to life.* Originally released in 1991 for SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive, Gynoug is a horizontal shoot ’em up that blends elements
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On Wednesday, publisher Ratalaika Games announced that 2D horizontal shooter Gynoug is scheduled to release on 12 November for PS4, Xbone and Nintendo Switch via each platform’s digital storefronts. Originally developed by NCS and released in 1991 for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive (under the title Wings of Wor in the US), Gynoug combines horror and fantasy elements into the tried-and-true
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It’s 1996, and Capcom was being a total tease by not releasing Street Fighter III. Instead, Capcom was intent on flooding the fighting game market with X-Men: Children of the Atom, the Street Fighter Alpha series, and what is arguably their most adventurous take on the fighting genre up to that time: the Darkstalkers series. Released under the title Vampire:
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