While looking for something in my garage, I ended up finding something completely retro. A relic as it were. It was a gaming magazine from 1993 called Sega Visions. Video game magazines are still around today however they’re not as common as they used to be. Gamers today seek out information on gaming websites and social media. During this edition of Throwback Thursday, we take a look at what it was like to look through Sega Visions from February/March of 1993.
The cover itself is eye popping. This isn’t thanks to the bright yellow text or blue green background. Nope. What caught my eye was that the Sega CD is being featured in this magazine. I had to laugh. Then I started to feel sorry for it. I owned a Sega Genesis, GameGear and a Saturn. The Sega CD flew over my head and just kept going.
The ads and the articles themselves all have to have large text with bright colors. If you weren’t interested in looking at Sega Visions, they make sure you will once you open up the magazine. After pages of ads, letters from fellow gamers, we finally get to a game! First up, is Ecco the Dolphin which was first released in the summer of 1993 for the Sega Genesis and Sega CD. You play as a dolphin (surprise!) that travels the ocean and time to find his family. This game is available today on the Virtual Console, iOS devices and Steam. Every dolphin should experience being picked up by a pterodactyl. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist, Flashback and Streets of Rage 2 are also featured. There’s a lot less text and more screenshots shown for these games. Nothing like seeing 16-bit characters blown up for a magazine. Really shows off the graphical power of the Sega Genesis. Another classic that will never be forgotten (even if you never play the game) is Battletoads. In this issue of Sega Visions you get a sneak peak of this 1993 game from Rare.
Sega CD saw the release of Cobra Command (sadly, it has nothing to do with G.I. Joe), Batman Returns (video games based on movies make me shiver), Sewer Shark, Jaguar XJ220 (Forza and Gran Turismo had to start somewhere) and Wonderdog. The games featured for the Sega CD do not stop there! But we’re going to pause right here for a quick history lesson. The Sega CD hit the Japanese market in December of 1991. North America got their hands on it in October of 1992 while the rest of the world had to wait until the Spring of 1993. The Sega CD (or Mega CD) was released as an expansion to the Sega Genesis. The Sega CD could play audio CDs and allowed a new format of gaming to be played, the disc. This expansion device didn’t do well in the market. In fact, one of the most violent video games to date can be found on the Sega CD, Night Trap. Thanks to Night Trap, we now have the ESRB. The main reason why the Sega CD was created was to give the Sega Genesis a faster processing unit. This little project was taken control by Sega of Japan and Sony. Sega of America was left in the dark until the actual unit was completed. This caused many units in America to be defective.
Before YouTube and other video sharing, streaming and recording sites, there was Make my Video for the Sega CD. This game was released in 1992 and came in four parts. Two of the four are regarded as the worst games of all time. Kris Kross and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. INXS and C&C Music Factory are the other two games featured in Make my Video and received less heat than the other two.
Sega Visions from 1993 was filled with large words and used colorful graphics to get their point across. It was the year of Battletoads, Madden ’93, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, terrible Marky Mark games, Super Wrestlemania, and World of Illusion. This was the Mickey Mouse game that is seeing a remaster version later this year. It was nice looking back at this magazine however what I remember from the Sega Genesis were Sonic, Zombies, and Vector-Man.
