What an earth were Sega thinking? (Sega Genesis Gain Ground (Amiga))

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Sega Genesis Gain Ground (Amiga)
Date:	07/09/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Will last ages...

Disadvantages: ...if you can actually stomach it

On the Mega Drive Collection theirs this rather bizarre game that I'd never even heard of until I bought the collection released in the early part of the 1990's. Though a long way from being one of the better games on the collection it was a nice look into one of the early Mega Drive/Genesis games. It started life in the late 1980's on the arcade before it was ported to the Mega Drive and in turn the Master System and now finds it's self on a host of collection disks and the Wii's virtual Console.

The game utilises a top down view (similar to some RTS games) and sees the player controlling a member of a team with special abilities as they try to reach a designated exit point and kill enemies. In the event of the character dying the player then uses a separate character to try and achieve the same goal with the player having a set amount of lives. If the level is completed with out the loss of any lives a player is given another character (theirs about 20 in total) though if the player has lost lives they can collect their fallen foe (up to one in any level) to add them to their usable characters. The level is complete if at least 1 character makes it to the final point.

With 50 levels to play on the Mega Drive (apparently) the game is hugely long though as I've never managed to get past the fourth level it could perhaps tell you that the game is incredibly difficult and rather long winded for a game from a time before saving was possible. The characters each have 2 weapons one is a weak weapon that can be fired in any direction whilst the other is a stronger one, often limited in firing direction. They also differ in walking speeds with some much slower than others, and handedness, which can be used for tactical purposes (apparently).

The gameplay seems simple as a concept but yet seems slow and cumbersome with a rather annoying attribute that I can't put my finger on but yet it is just frustrating. It feels really limited and despite the fact I'm not good at it, I feel impossible to find any enjoyment in it even if I was good I doubt it'd be fun. Sadly for the era of gaming it's from, it seems to have been ahead of it's time in the fact it's overly willing to take it's self seriously is a problem with me. I play games for fun, not to be tearing my hair out with anger and frustration.

Overall a poor effort from Sega that sadly fails to match the quality of many of the games of the era, sadly I would say it's aged terribly but I fail to see how it was even entertaining back in the day. When many would rather remember the Mega Drive for Sonic, Streets of Rage and Golden Axe it's a shame that this is also here, a tedious gaming affair that's genuinely difficult to enjoy. Though some people will no doubt have fond memory's of this from when gaming was in it's relative infancy, when compared to the games of today or even the better games of the early 1990's such as Streets of Rage, Sonic, Streets Fighter and the Mortal Kombat series. This pales in looks, playability, and general idea, as a result it's not worth going back and trying to play as it's genuinely unenjoyable and long winded. Perhaps as an arcade game it was fun, it was short lived, but as a home console game it just wasn't upto much to suggest that it was ever to be worth the release it got.

Summary: Difficult, pointless and silly