I loved the original G&G on NES, then I played Super G&G on SNES. I didn't play Ghouls 'n' Ghosts until it came out as part of the Capcom Classics Collection on PS2. My cousin had a Genesis but he only had Sonic and Mortal Kombat, so I didn't get to experience much of the Genesis until later.
I know I learned to make do with bad games because money was tight. It made me more discerning in game buying.
I played the home version of Qix on the Atari 130XE. Never seen the arcade version. I did see the GB version.
Did you ever see the Gals Panic games? Those were Qix games made by Kaneko where the ultimate payoff was topless pictures of nubile young Japanese ladies. I used to see them at truck stops, LOL.
DK Junior is available on the NES for Switch now, and so is the arcade version, as an Arcade Archives title. I definitely prefer the arcade version of the two. That said, NES version at least has all four levels, unlike the NES version of the originall DK, and was a pretty good home version for its time. The arcade version has better graphics, sound, and cut scenes. Either way, you should give it a try.
It's too bad Namco hated Jr. Pac-Man so much because it was made by Midway. It wasn't quite as good as Ms. Pac-Man, but isn't bad either.
I played the NES version of this, and I just downloaded the arcade version onto my Switch. I now have all three of the original DK arcade games.
This game is mostly frustratingly hard, even more so than Galaga or Gaplus. The arcade version naturally has a lot of details the NES version didn't. The bugs actually eat Stanley if there are enough of them on-screen when he dies. Donkey Kong ends up with half his face swollen when you push him up into a beehive. Kind of reminds me of Homer's stint as head bee guy,
I need to buy a new memory card. I buy most of my games on cartridge, but every time Mortal Kombat 11 needs an update, I have to delete stuff because I don't have enough space.
On this episode, that bit about Bing Gordon came from an interview in Game Informer magazine. At the time, they were running a "what if" feature, and one of those articles explored "what if" Sega had sabotaged EA at CES 1992 with Madden.
Stage Select:
My favorite era of gaming is actually going on right now. On one handy device, I have an arcade bigger than the Gold Mine/Tilt at my mall when I was a kid, and one that has most of Nintendo's arcade library; my three favorite Final Fantasy titles (VII, XII, and IX), two entries in my favorite SRPG series, lots of other great RPGs, as well as games yet to come, a lot of contemporary classics like Celeste and Cuphead... and the big, beautiful Zelda game that my young self always dreamed about. So with a mix of nostalgia and contemporary classics, I'm having a better time in gaming than I've possibly had since I was a kid.
Cage match:
Gonna go with Asura's Wrath on this one. Until Dawn and Heavy Rain type games aren't my cup of tea.
I wouldn't mind having.a mug like that myself. The only thing I've gotten lately in the drinking department is a set of silver goblets, boring. I want my Zelda mug!
Stage Select:
I'm going to take a slightly different tactic here. If I were to change video game history, I would have had Sega sabotage Madden 92 for the Genesis at CES. That kind of public humiliation would likely have knocked EA out of the console market for years, if not forever, and probably led to their losing their partnership with the NFL. EA gets away with a lot of its horrible business practices in large part because they have a guaranteed stream of Madden dollars and FIFA euros every year. It would have profoundly changed the face of gaming. EA would have been curtailed somewhat in buying and gutting studios, as well as a lot of its other predatory practices. Madden 92 itself existed because of said predatory practices, where EA basically strong-armed Sega by threatening to release Madden as an unlicensed game. The industry would hopefully have been less homogenized than it is now because EA would be much weaker than it is. Sega could have handled American football while Konami could have handled soccer. Ultimately, it's hard to say, kind of like what happened when Jake prevented JFK's assassination in 11/22/63. Maybe the video game industry would have tanked. Maybe the PS1 would have fared worse. Who knows?
According to Bing Gordon, who was the chief creative officer of EA at the time, Sega really did have the ability to destroy Madden 92 at CES through some sort of kill switch. EA's executives were apparently waiting with bated breath at CES for Sega to drop the hammer on them, but they never did.
Video Game Cage Match:
I'm going with Streets of Rage on this one. Final Fight always seemed to be very clunky to me, and I wasn't a fan of the character designs on it. I liked SoR's fighting and design much better, and I liked Axel, Skate, and particularly Blaze better than I did Guy, Cody, or Haggar. There was also the fact that I didn't get into Final Fight in the arcades because I gravitated more towards Konami beat 'em ups like TMNT and The Simpsons.
