Lord Spencer's Gaming (and other stuff) Blog

    I remember having a lot of fun times playing the SNES in my childhood, but I did not play buy about 10 to 15 games, and many games that I played I couldn't go far into owing to my inability to read basic instructions in English. As I grew up, I played more SNES games that came my way, as well as others released on other platforms. Due to the sheer quality of those titles that I played years later (such as Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger) and those I remember playing ( Donkey Kong's Country, Super Mario World ), I was always curious about the quality of all those titles I did not play. Three years before starting this review series, IGN released a list of their top 100 SNES games . Reading that list, I got excited and wanted to play all of them. However, I realized that just playing them wouldn't be enough. I wanted to study that list, and hence decided to review most games on the list. I say most because I decided I wouldn't review: Games I already played (doe...

The reduced cost of making games on the PS1 invited a deluge of licensed games for anything from mainstream movies such as Die Hard to niche anime such as Serial Experiment Lain . As such, it is not surprising that one of the hottest anime franchises of the 90s had its own licensed game. What is surprising is that, contrary to our logical expectation, the Ghost in the Shell game was actually good. Even though it could have satisfied fans purely through the returning cast of voice actors and the high-quality anime cutscenes, the game introduced some innovative gameplay mechanics that were consistently fun. In what is both a big praise of the game and a nod to its biggest flaw, I wished there was more of it at the end. #A6: Ghost in the Shell:- Year: 1997. Genre: Action, 3rd-Person Shooter. Publisher: Sony, THQ. Developer: Exact.

Back in the early 1990’s, I think my first console was actually the Sega Genesis. My uncle had an SNES, and my cousins had an SNES, but I had a Genesis for some reason. I only had two or three games on the console; one of them was Sonic Pinball . For some reason, I didn’t get any more games after that. Instead, I asked my parent to buy me Nintendo’s console and never looked back. Simply, having multiple family members with the same console meant we could share the same games. When I first joined Destructoid, I was in the middle of a personal quest to review all of the best SNES games that I did not play before. In essence, to review the SNES by reviewing its library. After finishing that review series, I decided I would do a similar one for the Genesis ; a console I did not give enough of a chance before. The console design was never the best, and those game pads were terrible As such, I found a list of top 100 Genesis games at Retro-Sanctuary.com and decided to review the games that ...

Now that I've completed my Genesis Reviews series (playing around 33 Genesis games), it’s time to make a top 10 list of all the Genesis games. In my opinion, any console with 10 must-play games is worth owning. That number of great games would justify the price of the console by itself (unless it’s the bloody expensive 3DO or original run PS3). That’s not to say that all games in this list are “must plays” though, but all of them are worth playing indeed. Unlike with the SNES, I didn’t play many Genesis games before. As such, nearly all of the games on this list are from my review series. Note that the list is in alphabetical order. Castlevania: Bloodlines (1994): Genre: Action Platformer Publisher: Konami; Developer: Konami. Let’s start with one of the best action games of the 16-bit era. Bloodlines is really only competing with Super Castlevania IV for that title, but it has two protagonists instead of one. While I may have exaggerated my admiration for the game in my review (...

In this report of the top 10 Genesis games according to Retro Sanctuary , we have reached the pinnacle of the Genesis's library, as evidenced by the five games which I reviewed and enjoyed. Even playing Run & Guns, which is a genre I am not typically a fan off, I managed to enjoy  Contra: Hard Corps  and  Gunstar Heroes . While for the genres I have experience with, my only contrarian point is that  Sonic 3  is not better than  Sonic 2 , while it is clear that  Phantasy Star IV is the best RPG on the system. Then there are the games I didn't review, with some being influential masterpieces such as  Herzog Zwei  and Thunder Force IV , while others such as  Ristar  being late generation wonders that I perhaps should have reviewed. My only criticism of this list is the inclusion of  Street Fighter II: Champion Edition  instead of  Super Street Fighter II , and I have something to say about that below. Surprising no o...

By the time Sonic 3 was released, the 16-bit console wars were already coming to a close. After a strong fight in the beginning, Sega quickly lost ground to Nintendo. This was especially true because of terrible business decisions such as the Genesis CD and 32X enhancements.  While Sonic 3 is a great continuation of the excellent Sonic 2 , Sega's business decisions actually hamper this game as well. For some reason, Sega butchered the game and later released an add-on (like physical DLC) to extend the game's length and add Knuckles. Even if the base Sonic 3 game is not as good as the second game (or as good as it could have been without Sega butchering it), it still is a great platformer for the system. 1: Sonic the Hedgehog 3:- Year: 1994. Genre: Platformer. Publisher: Sega. Developer: Sega (Sonic Team).