PixlBit

I suspect that, much like the troubles Nintendo had with Ikegami Tsushinki that kept the arcade versions of DK 1-3 and Mario Bros from being (mostly) released on home systems long after consoles capable of playing them were on the market, that there are parts of the Ms. Pac-Man IP that ATGames inherited and parts that they didn't. Bandai Namco simply isn't going to take the chance of giving them any more leverage over the Pac-Man IP than they already do. ATGames, meanwhile, is probably still smarting over Bandai Namco accusing them of producing substandard Pac-Man plug-in games a few years back.

Thankfully, Nintendo and Ikegami got their issues squared away. It's awesome to have two of my favorite arcade games playable in their original form anytime I want. At some point maybe Ms. Pac-Man will be sorted out.

What kind of console is playing your Genesis games? I bought a RetroN-5 a couple of years ago, the one that has SNES, NES, Genesis, and GB/GBA. I wanted to play Mother 3 on it, but the thing continually crashed after 5 minutes. I ended up boxing it back up and putting it away since I could never get it to work. I later found a reasonably priced GB Player disc and got a new GB Player for my Gamecube, and played Mother 3 that way. For Genesis games, the Genesis and Konami collections on Switch cover most of those bases pretty nicely, and NSO is filling in the gaps those collections didn't cover.

PSIV is also on NSO, as are Shining Force I&II. The collection has all three Genesis PS games, though. 

Oh, and I managed to get a pre-order on Fire Emblem Engage: Divine Edition. That and Bayonetta are the first time I've been able to snag Nintendo special editions in three years (last time was with Three Houses.)

They're based on Atlantic City, with Boardwalk being the AC boardwalk. AC looks kind of run down these days, as the hopes of various developers to turn it into the Vegas of the east never came to fruition. I took my wife to AC for her birthday when we lived out there. We had dinner at a nice steakhouse (22 ounce prime rib and potatos with all the fixin's, $20 a plate!) and stayed in a nice hotel with a good hot tub, but as far as entertainment, we felt it would probably have been just as well to go play the slots at Maryland Live. I felt a little bad that it didn't quite pan out. Still, I can now say I've seen Atlantic City. And Marven Gardens.

My favorite early 80s racing game was The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, a racing game published for the Atari 8-bit computers by Activision. It was designed by the guy who made ATVI's 2600 racing game Enduro, so it bears a certain resemblance. You raced across the US from the West Coast to the East Coast, having to deal with driving conditions, changing traffic patterns, making sure you didn't run out of gas, and the police, where you either had to get your speed down to the 60s or try and outrun them. It was a precursor to games like OutRun and Cruis'n USA, and was inspired by a 1981 movie called Cannonball Run.

In the Namco vs. Sega arcade wars of the late 90s, I generally preferred Sega's offerings (one notable exception was Tekken 3, which was a better game than VF3). I did get Ridge Racer R4, sans the Jogcon. It actually had a catchy soundtrack. Nintendo kind of outdid both of them, not with Cruis'n USA, but Wave Race 64.

These days, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has largely spoiled me for any other racing game. I never could get into the Gran Turismo/Forza style of racing sim, though I did entertain building a sim racing cockpit at one time. One of the guys who was on 1UP had a pretty sweet racing sim cockpit. But at this point, it's hard for me to go back to racing without turtle shells, plumbers, and weird gravity stuff. I also briefly contemplated getting Mario Kart Live.

One other racing game I'd like to mention is Car Wars, which was a TI-99/4a clone of Dodge 'Em and Head On. I played that a fair bit back in the day.

I think there was a Choro-Q game on N64, which is when I first heard ot the toyline.

I was a SNES dude, so most of what I knew about the Genesis library came form kiosks at Service Merchandise and my cousin who had a Genesis. Almost got one for Mortal Kombat... then I saw the SNES version of MKII, plus the SNES got a Zelda bundle. Over recent years, I've been trying out Genesis games, notably Phantasy Star and Shining Force 1-2.

Recently, they added one of the Genesis games I did know: Alisia Dragoon. You're a sorceress with a pet dragon familiar, which was kind of novel back then.

I don't mind the ports so much. It's getting older games into current ecosystems, and that's a good thing.  Plus, I like RPGs and enjoy the occasional farming sim. Totally didn't see farming becoming the next hot thing in gaming. So that Nintendo Direct hit the spot.

The new Zelda games is "Tears of the Kingdom" in the former sense. That's part of the reason why Nintendo UK delayed its presentation, in light of the death of Queen Elizabeth.

I have a mithril Gamecube.

Incidentally, I've visited the real life Marven Gardens, which gets its name because it sits on the boundary between Margate City and Ventnor City in NJ. Unfortunately, the homes there are a little out of my budget.

The Smash Boats game sounds kind of interesting, especially now that it has multiplayer.