The Randomizer - Fatal Rewind (Genesis)

 

 
The Randomizer is a D-Sub9 feature in which a randomly selected retro game is experienced for no more than twenty minutes. These are the stories.

Randomizer Selection #768 - Fatal Rewind (Genesis)

And now...

It's time...

FOR THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

At this point in the game's intro I expected some elephants and a lion tamer or two. But no, crushing disappointment and "too effing bad" is the soup du jour when it comes to Fatal Rewind by developer Raising Hell (now Bizarre Creations, the Geometry Wars guys).  I'm pretty sure it was published by Electronic Arts, although the port job was so spotty that Fatal Rewind was apparently presented by both EA and Psygnosis. At this point I needed to do some research because I was in way over my head on this one.

Fatal Rewind was previously titled The Killing Game Show and was released originally on the Amiga. It was ported with the more family friendly title to the Genesis, and was published by EA for that platform. For the life of me I can't figure out what the storyline is behind Fatal Killing Game Rewind Show, but from the various Amiga-version video caps out there, it looks like you're a bipedal dog-like robot that shoots things a great deal.

So far, so good.

I Hate Super Metroid - Part 1: The Challenge

Super Metroid/Metroid 3 has been a thorn in my retro side since the day I gave it a spin in the electronics department of the Framingham Lechmere, circa 1993. I was eight then, and yet twenty years later I still remember the pain from the crick in my neck and the persistent headache I got trying to wrap my head around what the magic was behind this title. For me, Super Metroid was a title that had accomplished so much, yet failed on the most essential level of conveyance and accessibility. It had always been just out of reach for me; tempting, yet never broaching that threshold of "hooked". Alas, I had never played Metroid 3 past two or three hours, and had never beaten it.