Silent Debuggers (Virtual Console)
What Is It?
You know how it's hard to play a fighting game before Capcom released Street Fighter II? And how pretty much every 3D racing game looked archaic before the invent of polygonal graphics? Well, Silent Debuggers shows us why we never cared about first-person shooters before Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Silent Debuggers is an old TurboGrafx-16 game that has been completely ignored by everybody ... including those of us who love the console. Silent Debuggers is a first-person dungeon crawler set in the future, sort of like the original Phantasy Star ... only not fun at all. It's your job to fight through hallway after hallway shooting giant insect-like alien creatures and making the space station save for humans to live. With its drab backgrounds and terrible level designs Silent Debuggers is hard to get excited about, especially if you're one of the many Wii owners waiting for a good (or at least competent) first-person shooter.
Does It Still Hold Up?
In a world of Halo and Crysis it's hard to get excited about a first-person shooter that doesn't even let you aim. Silent Debuggers is an incredibly early FPS game, but don't confuse "early" with "classic". This game is hard to play, hard to enjoy, and hard to love. The controls are horrendous and the level designs are so bad that you'll want to stop playing after only a few minutes. There are good early-generation first-person shooter games (Faceball 2000 springs to mind), but Silent Debuggers is not one of them.
Is It Worth the Money?
If you like throwing your money away then this game is for you. The TurboGrafx-16 was home to a lot of great games, and Silent Debuggers is not one of them. If you're the type of person who loves inadequate maps, terrible character designs, long-winded dialog sequences and boring graphics, then Silent Debuggers is right up your alley. If you're somebody who likes fun video games, then perhaps you should just buy Paper Mario or something.
Sonic the Hedgehog (Xbox Live Arcade)
What Is It?
It's the game that made Sega a real contender in the home console market. Released sixteen years ago, Sonic the Hedgehog was Sega's answer to Nintendo's popular Super Mario franchise. Instead of focusing on hidden items and intricate level designs, Sonic the Hedgehog was about speed and pure energy. Sonic was fast and full of attitude, and at the time there was just nothing like that on the market. While it's easy to complain that the original Sonic was an overly simplistic action game with almost no depth, this Xbox Live Arcade version still demonstrates why the game was so popular in the first place. Sonic may have never reached the same heights as Nintendo's Italian plumber, but Sonic the Hedgehog is a classic game in its own rights. This Xbox Live Arcade version features achievements and slightly smoothed out graphics. Perhaps more important is the $5 asking price, which is actually three dollars cheaper than Sonic on the Virtual Console.
Does It Still Hold Up?
If you're a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series then it's hard to look at this game without yearning for the depth and complexity of Sonic 3. This original Sonic game is pretty shallow, especially when it comes to the stage designs. Most of the early levels can be beaten by simply running and jumping, while the later levels require a bit more memorization. The graphics and game play are still good, but this first Sonic isn't nearly as exciting as its sequels (which will hopefully make their way to the Xbox Live Arcade soon).
Is It Worth the Money?
I'm so used to complaining about the $8 asking price on the Virtual Console I'm almost not sure what to say about this Xbox Live Arcade game. While it's true that you can get this game cheaper on one of the Sonic collections, this version is only five dollars and comes with a few worthwhile achievements. I do like the fact that this Genesis game is only five dollars, but it would have been nice if Sega would have added more to the value. Either way, Sonic the Hedgehog if you can't find the Sonic Mega Collection and have five dollars to spend then this is one game worth picking up.
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