Action Fighter - Sega Master System review

That car doesn't really look very suited to fighting action

Game: Action Fighter
Format: Sega Master System
Developer: Sega 
Publisher: Sega
Year Released: 1986
Also Released on: Arcade, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga
Now Available on: Nothing

Is it a bike? Is it a car? Is it a plane? No, it's Superm, er, Action Fighter. That's Action Fighter, not Superm Action Fighter. Action Fighter is one of the Sega Master System's earliest games, a conversion of an arcade game with the same name. It also appeared on a few home computers too, something I didn't know until I took a look at the Internet a few seconds ago. Then again, I didn't even know it was originally an arcade game until Wikipedia informed me. Now I'm curious to see what it looked like on other systems. Might find out after I've written this. I really don't know what's going on with the formatting on this page. Blogger seems to have a mind of its own today.  

What happens if I push 3? The game explodes?? I'll try that then

Action Fighter is an overhead vertically scrolling drive 'em, fly 'em, shoot 'em up. A Drflshmup to give it its made-up modern name. The idea of the game is to drive, fly and shoot things. I'm sure there is a purpose for all of this reckless behaviour, and I'm sure that purpose is explained in the instruction manual or on the back of the box. So, seeing as my fancy has been well and truly tickled, I shall find out. Exactly why must I drive, fly and shoot things?

Hang On! Is that the bike from, er, what was it?

Hmmm, so according to the text on the European box, you "Take the motorcycle from "Hang On," equip it with hi-tech weaponry and give it the ability to transform itself into an aircraft or car - and you've got ACTION FIGHTER!" Well I never, it's the Hang On bike! I still don't know why it needs equipping with hi-tech weaponry and or why it has the ability to transform itself into other vehicles.  Maybe the American box has more info. Here is its text in full, and I'll put it in italics to make it stand out:

Get ready to play a starring role in the incredible world of international espionage. You receive five different assignments. All action-packed. And all extremely dangerous. Your secret weapon? A vehicle that transforms into a dozen different deadly devices.  Your high-speed motoscycle can turn into a customised car and then into a sound-barrier breaking jet plane. All in a matter of seconds. The real test? To know when to use which weapon. Because the wrong machine, at the wrong time, can prove fatal.  

That reminds me, I need to watch the People vs, OJ Simpson.
Everyone tells me how good it is

Oooh, so it's espionage then? Spy games and the like. A bit like being a spy hunter of sorts? Original. No mention of the bike from Hang On though. Maybe being a vehicle used for spying, it doesn't want its true identity revealing. Instead, it's just described as a motorcycle that can transform into a dozen different deadly devices (nice use of alliteration there, Sega!). Unfortunately, the box only mentions two of the transformations, the car and plane, and they are the only two in the game too. I feel short-changed now. What are the other ten, and why aren't they in the game? Why mention a dozen if you're not going to let us see them? And what's all this bullcrap about knowing when to use which weapon? Yes, you can switch from bike to car and back to the bike if you want, but why would you? Once you've gained the ability to change to the car, you'll never ever go back to using the bike as it's horrible to control. And you change automatically from car to plane and back again depending on where about you are in the level. Yes, I think that whoever wrote the box text hasn't actually played the game.  

Red Two. Get back in formation. That is an order. Red Two!! Just you wait until we get back to base.

Your president certainly gets straight to the point. Either
that or he can't put together full sentences yet.

But I have. In Action Fighter, after picking your name, a message from the President of wherever you are tells you to unleash fire and fury on whichever place has pissed him off. You then set off on your little bike, whizzing along a road at stupidly fast speeds, avoiding other road users - or just shooting them - and collecting letters. For some reason, many of the vehicles you can destroy are ambulances. I did initially think that doing so would result in some sort of penalty, but apparently not. The sick and injured are clearly not worthy of your consideration, so need dealing with accordingly. There are quite a few parallels between this game and the modern-day policies of a certain orange President. You speed up by pushing up on the d-pad, slow down by pushing down, and fire with button 2. Every now and again, you'll spot a Sega van. Driving into the back of it causes your vehicle to become enhanced with faster and more powerful weaponry. After you've collected the letters A, B, C, and D, which apparently correspond to the four corner sections of your vehicle, your bike transforms into a car. The car is easier to control than the bike, but operates in pretty much the same way. You can switch from bike to car and car to bike by pressing buttons 1 and 2 at the same time. Go on to collect the letters E and F and your car will eventually stop at a checkpoint, gain wings and take off. 

We'll fight them on the beaches, we'll fight them on their
freshly mown lawns.

When in flight mode, the game becomes a standard vertical shooter. Just shoot everything or dodge them. Button 2 remains your fire button,  but button 1 becomes your bomb-dropping button. Use it to drop bombs on objects situated on the ground or in the sea. This includes some of the end of level bosses, which are the ones that your President requested you to destroy. 

The game continues in the same way throughout the remaining levels, only sometimes you begin the level as the plane which will then later become the car with the boss battles taking place on ground rather than in the air. Eventually, once you've switched your vehicles around enough times, and used them to take out whichever nasties are stupid enough to get in your way, you'll complete the game. 

The magical transforming Hang On bike doesn't really look the most aerodynamic vehicle, even when it has wings

Old Hang On finds the 14th hole, but has put the ball in the
water hazard. 

Action Fighter is very samey. Although changing from one vehicle to another should offer some variety in gameplay, both gaming styles are fairly similar to each other, and just repeat one after the other. As well as being repetitive, Action Fighter is also extremely tough. On the ground at top speed, it's impossible to react to the presence of other road users and to make turns when you need to. And constantly having to press fire tires out your fingers very quickly. Your vehicle does have auto-fire which works by holding down the fire button, but it fires so slowly that it's pointless. Of course, you can slow down, but you'll either slow down too much and need to speed up again, and then back down again, or you'll just decide to drive like a snail, which only results in you getting rear-ended. Finding that happy medium (Russell Grant?) isn't very achievable. The constant shooting, dodging, slowing down and speeding up, combined with regular deaths, just makes the game a pain in the ass to play. And when in the air, although you no longer have to deal with controlling your speed, you get bombarded with enemy aircraft and their bullets, some of which are hidden from view in the clouds. And those that aren't are hidden from view because of the Master System's flicker. You really have to shoot and hope. Kind of like having unprotected sex. Or perhaps not. Perhaps to rebalance the odds in the player's favour a little, a bit of variety to your firepower would have been nice. I don't mind hard games, but I don't like games that are only hard because they are unfair. The only saving grace in this game is that you have unlimited lives as you play against a timer. It starts at 999 and counts down. If it reaches zero before the end of the level, it's game over. The game really is a typical example of what early Master System releases were like, being just the same game on a loop. I can't even imagine it being much fun even if you do persevere with it and get good at it. Unless you have a weird ambition to become an Action Fighter master, it's probably not going to keep you entertained for very long.

Their are some enemies in those there clouds. Somewhere.

Have you seen my chopper? Hehe

As far as graphics go, everything is nice and colourful and ok to look at, although the aforementioned clouds and flicker only add to the overall frustrations that the game seems only to happy to serve up. To offend your ears, two or three nasty-sounding tinkly "tunes" play in the background, They're not even good for Master System standards, and don't even sound in tune. And the sound effects are just awful. Like everything else in this game, the graphics style and music don't change as you play through it. There really is nothing that signifies to you that you are progressing through it. Even some colour changes would have helped a bit. And any change to the music would have been good. Maybe different notes. Or no notes. Yes, no notes at all would be best. 

You can bog off if you think I'm carrying on
with this shite Mr President

So, um, yes, I can't think of anything else to add. That's Action Fighter. Pure garbage.

RATINGS

Presentation – 70%

A car whizzes into the foreground, flashes its lights and the title is displayed. A few intermissions give you your objectives for each level, but there's very little else.

Graphics – 65%

Graphics are ok. The roads are grey, fields are green, water is blue and the clouds are white. And they fudging hide enemy aircraft in them. I hate those clouds. 

Sound – 45%

Turn it off. Turn it off now. Horrible.

Playability – 38%
At first, the game feels like it might be fun. But it quickly turns out that it isn't. It's not fun at all. It's hard, repetitive, frustrating and is about as enjoyable as visiting the dentist. Actually, my dentist is quite tasty so I don't mind doing that. 

Overall – 40%

Not the Master System's finest hour, or even 15 minutes. Quite horrendous. It might improve with practice, but there really are more worthwhile things to practice getting better at. 

Possibly the best part of the game, entering your name

Back to the Future Part III - Sega Master System review

Hehe. Probe.

Game: Back to the Future Part III
Format: Sega Master System
Developer/Publisher: Probe Software/Image Works
Year Released: 1991
Also released on: Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, PC, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Now available on: Nothing

 

 

 

On 29^th October 2015, we officially entered the future. That was the date that Marty McFly time travelled to in the 1989 movie, Back to the Future Part II. To celebrate the fact that the present is now the future, or the future is now the present, I’m going to treat myself to a hoverboard. I believe Amazon are trying to shift a few. Conveniently, this event also brings me onto this review. It’s not of Back to the Future Part II though, as I played that game as a youngster and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Instead, it’s of Back to the Future Part III.

Hmmmm, I think I got away with using that slightly tenuous link to introduce this review.

Nooooooo!!!!

Back to the Future Part III is a game that typifies everything that was wrong with games based on movies, games that were released just to cash-in on a lucrative film license. It was released on a variety of computers and consoles in 1991, including the Sega Master System. And rather coincidentally, it’s that version that I’m reviewing here.

I’ve never actually watched the movie in full, which is quite an achievement seeing as it seems to be broadcast every other weekend on ITV2, in between Jurassic Park and Scooby Doo. I have caught bits of it though - some of the end, some of the beginning, some of the middle. I get the general idea that it involves Marty going back to wild wild west times to rescue Doc Brown in the past, and there’s a bit involving them needing to get their car fixed to get back to the future. Or was that the first film? Could be both. After playing this game, I don’t think it matters at all whether or not you have seen the film. It appears to be loosely based on three scenes from it.

Yes, three scenes. That’s all. And each scene depicted isn’t spread across multiple levels. You just get one level for each scene. If you’re any good at mathematics, you’ll have probably worked out that this means that the game contains only three levels. Three levels for £25, or whatever it cost for games back then. A bargain. In modern money with inflation, tax rises and suchlike, that’s probably about £180 now.

But, it might just be that those three levels are three of the best levels in any game ever made. In which case, it doesn’t matter that there are only three of them. They are so great that you can play them over and over again and indulge in their quality for all of eternity. Unfortunately the reality is that they’re all a bit shit.

Bang bang. That reminds me. Has Chitty Chitty Bang Bang been on this Christmas?

Level one sees you controlling Doc Brown on horseback as he chases after some woman called Clara who appears to be getting dragged away in a horse and cart. It’s called a buckboard according to the game. To prevent her from being dragged over the edge of a cliff, Doc must catch up with her by leaping over hazards or shooting anything dangerous-looking, like cowboys and birds. He can also collect items, although I haven’t got a clue what any of them actually are or what they do. This level is extremely tough as you don’t have time to react to the appearance of an enemy. Instead you have to remember what’s coming up by playing the level over and over again. Additionally, the controls require you to jump at exactly the right moment over chasms and hazards to avoid your horse coming to a sudden stop and flinging you over his head. Eventually you’ll get it, but it makes the level more a test of memory than of skill.

That's for stealing my steak bake. And don't think you're getting away so easily either, other birdy.

 

A little box at the bottom of the screen displays your progress in your rescue attempt of Clara, but you only appear to need to get half way across the display to complete the level. Either the programmers got bored and decided to end things at that point, or they forgot to come back to add the second half of the level to it. Whatever happened, it’s probably not a bad thing that such a horrible level appears to be over prematurely.

Plate tossing fun ahoy

Level two puts you in the time-travelling shoes of Marty McFly. It features a wild west shootout where you have to take on gun-toting cowboys by throwing plates at them. They might be custard pies, but whatever they are, controlling Mr McFly is a chore. His movement is very clunky, with the isometric layout of the level not making it easy to figure out which way to direct him. You seem to be able to apply some sort of swerve to your plates, but this only ever appears to result in them flying in every direction but the one that you want. The trick is to work out the correct place to stand and then throw your plate straight at your target. There are six enemies to take out with your crockery, with each requiring two well-aimed shots to do so. After you’ve done that, some bloke comes out of the saloon doors, firing badly at you. A few more plates in his face and he’s defeated too.

Duck! Not you. The ducks. You stay standing, I've got to throw a plate at you!

 

Yawn

Onto level three, in which you, as Marty again, must make your way along a speeding train, picking up what I assume are parts for your car to get it up and running again. They look like little bars, so they’re probably something for your car’s flux capacitor, or whatever it’s called. They all add 11 points to a counter at the top of your screen, so when you get eight of them, you have 88 points, which I guess represents the 88 miles per hour that the Delorean needs to reach to be able to travel through time. Making things harder for you are a choice selection of baddies. You can take them out by throwing more plates at them. Where Marty is keeping these plates, and why he seems to think they make good weapons, is a mystery to me. Maybe it’s explained in the film. Perhaps I should watch it so I can make sense of such things. If you’re not into throwing plates at people, if you time the collection of the car parts correctly, a whiff of smoke comes from the train and takes your enemies out for you. Time is very tight on this level, so it’s important to get the job done as quickly as possible. Again, the controls aren’t the most responsive, with it being all too easy to jump at the wrong time, misfire, or just completely fall off the train.

What are you doing lion around there? Get it? Lion? Lying around! Never mind.

 

Ooh, the number 131. I'll mark it off my trains in games spotting list

Once you’ve got all of the bars and made it to the front of the train, that’s it. No end of level boss, no big climax. You’re done. The game is over. You’ve made it. Fini. The ending contains some sort of semi-inspirational message about nobody’s future being mapped out for them and to make of life what you will, the likes of which you see in badly-compressed images that people share on Facebook. Sometimes with Minions. There’s a picture of the Delorean flying off into the future too, and a bit of music. It’s not much of a reward, but I suppose seeing as it only takes you five minutes to get to it, you probably don’t deserve any more.


Drama! Action!

Graphics aren’t actually too bad for this game, comparing quite well to some of the 16-Bit versions of the same game. They portray the film’s wild west setting quite well, although that only really entails using a lot of the colours yellow, orange and brown. A modified version of the Back to the Future theme and the rest of the music is bearable but forgettable, and sound effects do their job. But the main problem is that the game is just too short, and isn’t enjoyable to play anyway. Level one is a memory test, level two hardly requires any skill, and level three is a case of leaping from one carriage to another, shooting enemies and collecting bars, being similar to what you’d expect the first level of a game like Shinobi to be, only more frustrating. The levels just feel like a series of mini-games, which was an all-to-common way of adapting movies to video games. The sluggish controls detract further from any fun that can be had with this game.

Don't mind if I do Mrs Patmore

Bizarrely, from memory this game appeared to be quite well-received on its original release. I’m know that the video game versions of Back to the Future Part II were panned by critics, and rightly so because it’s garbage, but this one seemed to be more highly regarded. I don’t know why though. It’s awful. If you’ve got five minutes to spare, do anything but play this game. Phone your mum, make a cuppa, read another article on this website, sit and meditate, find pleasure in your own company. Anything but this.

Like and share if you agree.

 

RATINGS

PRESENTATION: 65%

A lengthy introduction of still images and text explains what’s going on, with similar intermissions between levels. The scenes are quite well-depicted in these bits with characters looking quite similar to their movie counterparts.

GRAPHICS: 76%

Large sprites and detailed screen layouts which reflect the game’s themes quite well, although it’s not always clear what some things actually are.

SOUND: 56%

Forgettable but inoffensive music. Sound effects are nothing special too.

PLAYABILITY: 33%

Frustrating from the start, a pain to control and, when you’ve mastered it, you can play through it in five minutes, less if you skip through the cut scenes.

OVERALL: 36%

The definition of the phrase “lazy tie-in”. Just three short unenjoyable levels which are an insult to gamers and fans of the film. The only thing I gained from it is learning what a buckboard is, and I’m not even sure if the word was made up for the film or is a real word.

Can't be bothered the five days until ITV2 are due to show another repeat of the film? Watch me play through the game. It's almost the same thing, but only five minutes long!

 

Great Sports on the Sega Master System

Fairly early on in the life of the Sega Master System, Sega released a series of sports simulations to entertain armchair atheletes. In the order of the alphabet they were Great Baseball, Great Basketball, Great Football, Great Golf, Great Ice Hockey, Great Soccer and Great Volleyball. Of course, claiming that anything's great usually means that it isn't, with the obvious exception of Great Britain, which is great. And possibly Great Yarmouth. As for Sega's "Great" sports games, it would have been much more truthful to call them Not-so-great Baseball, Bloody Awful Basketball, Absolutely Shite Football, Below Par Golf (see what I did there!?), Pucking Unplayable Ice Hockey, Crap Soccer and Terrible Volleyball. But doing so might have hampered sales somewhat. Even so, Sega did sometimes mix up the names a bit. Some games were apparently "Great" in one country but not in another, or games went under the same title in different countries, but were actually different games. Join us as we look back at this not-very-famous series of games to remind ourselves of why some games are sometimes best left in the past, and also attempt to make some sense of their names.

Penalty! Referee! Oh, wrong sport.

Great Baseball
To be fair, Sega's version of America's favourite bat and ball game wasn't that bad. It's certainly not great by any stretch of the imagination, but is at least moderately fun for a short while. Getting into a game is nice and quick, perhaps a little too quick as before you know it, somebody is throwing a ball at you at 100 miles an hour. There's no need to faff around with options and team selections, parameters, preferences and all manner of crap like many sports games of today require you to do. You simply choose a team from the A or the N league, whatever they are, pick a pitcher and away you go. As per the rules of baseball, you take it in turns to bat and pitch. Three strikes and you're out. Oh! So that's where the saying comes from! Well I never. The view when pitching and batting is from behind the pitcher, and looks quite impressive too. When the ball has been batted into whichever random direction it wants to go, the view switches to an overhead one, allowing you to see the playing field, and the little players running around the bases. There are actually two modes of play, one which allows you to control the fielders, and one which doesn't. Things get a bit fiddly when trying to control the fielders, so it's best to let the computer do that so you can concentrate on throwing the ball back to the bases, and to each other, and back again. The game is peppered with little samples of speech, some of which sounds like it is actually based on real words. The crowd noise sounds like a jet engine taking off though. Little tuneful ditties break up the action, and give a jolly feel to the game. The graphics are also quite good. I'm not sure if pushing the d-pad in any direction when pitching or batting actually has any effect on the ball, but pressing it anyway makes you feel like you're contributing some skill to the game.

This version of Great Baseball was released in Europe and the USA. An earlier game also called Great Baseball was released in Japan. It was a bit slower-paced and didn't utilise the behind the pitcher viewpoint, but it was fairly similar otherwise. Japan also receive a modified and much improved version of the European/US Great Baseball, which was known as The Pro Yakyuu: Pennant Race.

Rounder! Rounder! Rounder! Rounder!

Exciting!

Great Basketball
So, we've had rounders. Now netball. As with most of the "Great" games, there is minimal setup required to get you started with a game. In Great Basketball, options are pretty much limited to choosing whether you are playing by yourself or with a chum, and then choosing a country or countries to represent. A nice little national anthem plays for each nation you pick. Gameplay is arcade-style in, er, style. It's fairly easy to score points, and the game is quite fast-paced, but it's just lacking in variety and any sense of excitement. The ball feels a bit floaty and there is no real skill involved in throwing the ball. It's also too easy to foul other players. Sometimes you can manage it without even pressing a button. A tune plays throughout the game which isn't actually that annoying, although it sounds like the snippets of speech have been sampled from some extra-terrestrial species. They definitely don't represent anything heard on this planet. Graphics are colourful although it's often difficult to make out who's who. Again, like Great Baseball, Basketball is fairly fun to play for a short while, and is quite enjoyable with two players, but not necessarily because it's a good game. It's one of those so bad it's good kind of games.

There were no weird naming shenanigans going on here. Great Basketball was Great Basketball everywhere, apart from Brazil where it was Great Basket.

The USA are beating URS. URS? Ursula? Oh! USSR.

Hut hut! Twenty-eight! Fifty-six! Time out!

Great Football
This is Sega's attempt to bring American Football to owners of their 8-Bit box of tricks. They really shouldn't have bothered. It's terrible. There's a choice of what are probably made-up teams from the good old A and N leagues again, and that's about it. In one player mode, you only appear to be able to play in offence, and picking your tactics is a case of waiting for the formation selection screen to scroll through each formation, stopping it when it highlights the one you want. That's if you can figure out how to stop it. I can't, so I just have to wait until it gets to the last one. Surely it wouldn't have been difficult to program some sort screen with manually selectable menus. Gameplay itself is limited to either running with the ball, or throwing it to somebody else and letting them run with it. Okay, that's pretty much what American Football is, but in reality the sport is usually much more interesting than it sounds. The problem is, this version of American Football just isn't much fun to play at all. The sport itself is very much stop-start, but there's too much stopping and not enough doing anything in this game. Oh well.

The same version of Great Football under the same name was released worldwide. Poor world.

Looks like a load of firemen in a field of sheep.

Fore!

Great Golf
Probably the best of the Great series of games, which isn't really saying much. Great Golf is a fun, if simplistic, round of the Royal and Ancient game. It features two modes of play, Stroke Play and Match Play. Stroke Play is your typical get-around-the-course-in-as-few-shots-as-possible mode, whereas Match Play, which requires a minimum of two players, sees the winner declared based on who wins most holes. There's also a club selection screen. Graphics and sounds are average, with the viewpoint from behind the player taking a short while to display, and sound featuring a few effects, short tunes and the odd bits of sampled speech. Gameplay itself allows you to check the wind direction and speed, set your club, stance, direction and power. That's about it. The ball appears a bit floaty, and if you're playing solo, things get dull quite quickly. Incidentally, this was the very first Master System game I ever owned other than the built in Hang On and Safari Hunt, and I have fond memories of playing this with family and friends. Great days.

This version of Great Golf is the version released in Europe and the USA. An earlier game with the same title was released in Japan, but failed to make it out of Rising Sun land. It was an isometric version of the sport. The European/US version of Great Golf was released in Japan as Masters Golf.

Enough of this shit. Get me to the nineteenth hole.

No it isn't.

Great Ice Hockey
There's not a lot I can say about this. It's only compatible with Sega's crappy trackball controller, the Sega Sports Pad. If you don't have one, and probably 99% of Master System owners didn't, then this game was useless. Apparently it's not much better even with the correct accessory. Things don't sound or look that bad, although you can't really go wrong if your task is to draw ice. But how it actually plays is anyone's guess although I'll bet our cat on it that it doesn't play well. It mystifies me why somebody didn't think to make the game work with the Master System's standard controllers, you know, the ones that came free with every console, therefore the ones that everybody owned. Bizarre.

Fortunately, Europe were spared of the horrors of Great Ice Hockey as it failed to get released there. It did get a release in Japan and the USA.

Where the puck's the puck? Oh, who cares. I can't even play this game.

Lots of effort went into designing this title screen

Great Soccer
Sega managed to turn the Beautiful Game into something quite horrible here. You control your players up and down a pitch and attempt to tap the ball into a goal using a terrible aiming system. Your players move slowly and are unresponsive, and they don't seem able to keep control of the ball. As accurately as this reflects England's 2014 World Cup team, it just isn't much fun at all. Like all of the Great games, getting into the game is quick and easy. But having simple and accessible menu screens does little to redeem things. Graphics are depressing, the sound will offend your ears and you'll be turning this game off within minutes of turning it on. Do I not like that.

Again, there were two versions of Great Soccer. This time around, Japan and Europe received the vertically scrolling Great Soccer game mentioned above. The USA's version of Great Soccer was equally as bad, but scrolled horizontally. It was released in Japan and Europe as World Soccer, and released again in Japan as Sports Pad Soccer, compatible with the Sega Sports Pad.

He shoots! He scores! He wants to play something else!

Nice colour scheme here

Great Volleyball
I really wish I hadn't chosen to try to play through these games. The best of the bunch probably was Great Ice Hockey, but that's only because I couldn't get it to work so didn't have to play it. Fortunately, we've reached the final game, Great Volleyball. Unfortunately, it's just as unplayable as the rest. Things sounds ok and look nice and cartoony, but it's hard to control what's happening. I'm never really sure what player I'm controlling, and he just seems to do what he wants, rather than what I want him to do. You have a team of six players, but sometime you are controlling three of them, sometimes one. And the rest of the team that you're not controlling doesn't appear to want to help out. It's confusing and, once again, not fun. The worst thing is that these games would have originally retailed for about £20 each. Maybe more. The complete set would have set you back £140. That depresses me.

Great Volleyball was the same game in all markets. It was crap everywhere.

Spot the ball

It's not great. It's super.

Anyone for Tennis?
This series of games seemed to represent a number of major sports, but Sega don't appear to have served up anything for tennis fans. Or did they? Well, yes, there was apparently a game called Great Tennis. However, this was only in Japan. Great Tennis did make it abroad though. It was released in countries elsewhere on the planet as Super Tennis. Just the same as how the Great games weren't great, sticking Super at the front of something doesn't make it Super. Except for Super Gran  Unsurprisingly, Super Tennis was a simplistic version of tennis. It's a bit fiddly to control, and the ball seems to be quite floaty, but it's not too bad.

You cannot be serious! We've got another 14 years to go until Virtua Tennis comes out?