The best Shooting games
If there was one genre in which the Genesis absolutely dominated the SNES, it was shoot ’em ups. The library alone is still the largest on any console, with classics like PUSSY, Gley LancerAnd Lightening Force: Search for the Dark Star. If I am generous, I would add Gunstar Heroes And Alien Soldier into the mix, even if they don’t quite fit the classic definition of a shooting game.
The point is that all of these games hold up incredibly well, and that’s because the Genesis’ faster processor was a perfect fit for that style of game, as it excelled at displaying fast-scrolling levels and large, animated sprites. Shoot ’em ups are still some of the best-looking titles on the Genesis.
Excellent arcade game Ports
Although Nintendo initially made its name in the arcades, by the late 80s it had almost exclusively focused on console gaming. On the other hand, Sega relied on its arcade roots and released many top-notch coin-operated machines through the late 90s. This meant that the Genesis was built with arcade ports in mind. From the start, the Genesis had a top-notch library of arcade games like Golden Axe, Alien StormAnd Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (which, all controversy aside, is a surprisingly fun game.) If you were a fan of arcade games, Genesis was really the best option, as most third-party arcade games at least came out for both consoles.
These arcade ports also gave Sega the opportunity to push the Genesis to its absolute limits. The Genesis version of Virtua Race came with an additional chip that rendered the game in full 3D, and it is still one of the most impressive feats in programming of all time. On the other hand, Sega also attempted a 2D demake of Virtua Fighter 2 For the Genesis, it’s best to forget about it, although for some reason Sega continues to regularly include it in various compilations.
More titles for adults
Sega did not give the developers carte blanche to put whatever they wanted into the games, but Mortal Kombat As depicted, the company was much more open to violent and adult content in games than Nintendo was at the start of the 16-bit generation. This meant that Sega was the exclusive home of two games in the horror beat-’em-up series Splatterhouseand the infamous Sega CD game Night trapan FMV game about scantily clad teenage girls being attacked by vampires that helped found the ESRB.
The irony is that Sega actually had to make many of the same changes as Nintendo when it came to overtly sexual content and games with religious depictions, but allowing some gratuitously violent games on the console helped reinforce the perception among gamers that the Genesis was an adult console.
