A few years ago, Rob bought a Genesis. He already had an SNES and a Turboduo, so to round off his collection, he picked up Sega's 16-bitter. Rob bought it for one game which he really like playing in the arcade: Golden Axe. Unfortunately, he didn't have the money for it after buying the Genesis, so he bought an RPG that was really cheap: Fatal Labyrinth. He played that for a while, but it was a terrible game. Booooooring. He ended up renting Golden Axe and beating it in about an hour or so. He played through it about three or times, and that was it. Every few days, we'd rent another game, and play it a few times and beat it. Sega's ultimate game system was really beginning to suck.

A month or so went by when he receive a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog in the mail. Whoo-hoo! This game was supposed to be excellent. He popped it in and was amazed when the game said "SEGA." He played that game all the way through. Wow, blast processing at it's best! After he was done, he went out and rented another game. He only played Sonic two or three more times. The one thing that we came to a conclusion about was that Sega did NOT know how to make a game with replay value. If replay value meant playing it three or four times, they hit the nail right on the head. But if it means constantly playing a game over and over too many times to count, I'm sorry but Sega can't do that.

There was one time they came close though to coming close. Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Rob and I and our other friends spent many hours playing the Sonic vs. Tails game. We must have rented that game many many times. It was great. We loved nailing each other in that. First we'd jump onto one of those computers that switched our characters, and right before the system switched us, we'd make sure we bounced towards some spikes. The game switched us just in time for the other character to take the place and get nailed by the spikes. It was great. Just too bad that there's only four stages.

Well, we ended up renting more and more games and finding fewer and fewer good one. I can tell you all the games that we think are good in one line (in fact, let's do that.) Are you ready? Don't blink:

The Phantasy Star series, ToeJam and Earl (the First one!) and Virtual Pinball.

It also seemed that we were renting more and more SNES games. They have always been more fun from the start. Finally, after being let down too many times, Rob sold his Genesis and the seven games he actually bought to someone through the newspaper. The total value (if you add it up by how much it would cost if you were to buy it today) came up way more than the price he sold it for, but he still felt like he was ripping the guy off who bought it from him. He used the money to buy Chrono Trigger and Killer Instinct (THAT game has replay value.)

Now, you may be saying "What is the point of this story?" The point is that we have been let down by Sega too many times that the mere mention of the word makes us laugh. Therefore, we will not be adding them to Paladin Fanzine this time (anyone who read Paladin Fanzine five years ago can remember the Genesis reviews...) Sega cannot make games with replay value. Sega is more interested in making a game will good graphics (and I'd still like to see them do that) that they put nothing into the actual game itself. Not to mention their demented fixation on releasing millions of systems! Who the hell approved the 32X? It won't be long until Sega goes bankrupt drops out of the videogame industry. Sure, people say it's a rumour. It is a rumour right now. But it's also the future.

Be sure to read my opinion on who will win the console wars.
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