While Sega was my favorite videogame company growing up, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Sega over the last few years. I loved Vanquish. I loved Sonic Colors. I love Valkyria Chronicles… and well, I hated Iron Man, Golden Axe Beast Rider, Shining Wind, Sonic Riders, Sonic Free Riders, Sonic Unleashed, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Sonic Rivals, Sonic Chronicles, Sonic and the Black Knight, and ,um, well, you get the point. Still, they’ve been improving recently, and thanks to a sale that starts tomorrow, some of Sega’s more recent digital offerings will be available at a discounted price, so even if the game does in fact end up sucking, at the very least you minimized the amount of money you wasted.
Highlights from the sale, sorted by platform:
iOS:
Out of all of Sega’s iOS offerings, ChuChu Rocket is probably your best bet– the game is hands-down one of the most addictive competitive puzzle games ever made, and sacrificed many hours of sleep during high school trying to beat my friends in the Dreamcast version of that game’s frantic multiplayer mode. Sega also has some classic Genesis games available on iOS for only 99 cents each during the sale, but I can’t really recommend playing them on your iPhone or iPad: its simply wrong to try to play games like Sonic 2 and Streets of Rage with a simulated touch-screen controller.
PSN:
If you like arcade style racers, you’ll be hard pressed to find 2 games more fun than Daytona and Sega Rally, especially at around 7 bucks each. And while it’s trendy to hate on the game now, I still hold firm in my belief that Sonic Adventure (on sale with the bonus DX content [basically, the extra stuff that was added in the Gamecube version] for $8.99) is still a good game and a fun platformer, so if Sonic’s recent 3D outings have left you unsatisfied, you might as well use this sale as an excuse to go back and play one of his better (though, admittedly flawed) 3D adventures. Sonic 4 is available for $6.99 as well, but keep in mind that tomorrow will also see the release of the far superior Sonic CD, for a mere 5 dollars. For 2 dollars less than Sonic 4 you can get a game that’s about 2 times as good, so I think the choice there is obvious.
XBLA:
It’s slim pickins’ for 360 owners, as the only games Sega is discounting on XBLA are Renegade Ops (600 MS Points, usually 1200) and After Burner Climax (400 MS points, fifty-percent off). I haven’t played Renegade Ops, so I can’t comment on if that’s any good, but I have played the crap out of After Burner Climax, and if you’re in the mood for some shallow but exciting arcadey fun, than I can wholeheartedly recommend that game, especially at that price.