This game really makes up for the absence of shoot 'em ups on the Genesis.  This arcade game came out in 1986, but it is much better than many of the Genesis games on the collection.   The music and art style is very colorful and whimsical, but the shooting is serious business.  It's a side scroller than you can fly in either direction, similar to defender or chopper command.  You have a primary gun and a bomb, similar to Scramble.  You clear a round by beating all of a certain type of creature, designated on your radar screen, while fighting waves of other enemy formations.  The enemies drop gold, which can be used at a floating shop for upgrades to weapons and ship components.  Each round ends with a bullet hell style boss. 

This is a great game.  I give it value of $2.  My tolerance for shoot 'em ups isn't that great, but this is a good one and I'm glad to have it on this collection.

I finally unlocked Zaxxon by playing the miserable Decap attack.  Props to Jade from 1up clueing me into Chuck's "spastic hover" maneuver, which she mentioned on the "at1up" podcast.

And Zaxxon is as difficult as I expected.  I can't even get as far as I could as a kid.  I keep running into everything.  And that stupid robot is shooting missle from two stages away!  Unfair.  Still, notalgia is strong with this one.  Valuation $1.

As expected, Fallout has pulled me away, but I just hit the level cap, so I'll probably come back to the Genesis collection.  Don't want to waste XP.  So more Shining force, and maybe some Streets of Rage co-op with my wife.

I finally unlocked this game by playing Alien Storm with my wife.  Everything's better with co-op.  Alien Syndrome an arcade game from 1987.  It's not unlike a sci-fi version of gauntlet.  It's a top down shooter where your goal is to rescue a number of hostages before the timer expires, then head for the level exit.   You then face a boss battle before moving on to the next level.  The game is quite unforgiving as you die instantly from one hit.  The graphics are very appealing for it's era, and the action is generally satisfying.  Co-op play as always makes the game better.  (Only two player co-op, however).  I value this game initially at 50 cents.  Like so many it's replayability is limited by it's difficulty.  You can continue, but there appeared to be a limit.   Perhaps it was just that both players couldn't die at the same time.

I also unlocked and played Fantasy Zone, but I didn't play enough say much on it yet.  It struck me as a psychedelic cross between Scramble and Chopper Command.

I've now unlocked everything except Zaxxon.  I'd really like to get that one, but doing so requires me to play more DeCap Attack, which just doesn't interest me right now.   Maybe I can just look up what I need to do on a FAQ, if such things exist for DeCap attack.

Wow!  What a nice surprise.  This game really reminds me of the 8-bit computer RPG's that so occupied my youth.  The turn based combat especially reminds me of the gold box D&D games.  The graphics are blocky but generally appealing, and I like the portrait windows that pop up when you talk to someone, so you get a better view of what they look like.  I also like that when you select a character's action in combat, it shows a little scene with your character performing it along with the text.  I can see that getting old after a while, but I know you can change the display speed to help with that.

I just found this game immediately appealing and can't wait to play some more of it.  Initial valuation 1 dollar, with the potential to go higher.

I did go back and play Kid Chameleon again when I realized I had missed some abilities that were only spelled out in the pdf of the manual, not in the game.  It's a real shame they didn't include the pdf in the game.  Turns out I still missed out on the 'diamond powers' (or couldn't get them to work) so I'll try one more time.  Kid Chameleon really isn't a bad game, despite it's lame lead character.  I'll probably upgrade it's value to 50 cents.

At first glance, Gain Ground appears to be a slow, ugly, top down shooter similar to Commando.  From these perspective it's not much fun at all.  But it's actually something different.  Instead of scrolling through the top of the screen to the end, you are faced with a series of single screen levels, with an exit to reach.  It plays more like a puzzle game, as you traverse a sort of slow-mo bullet hell to take out enemies one by one, allowing further process towards the exit.  Extra lives are gained by finding other warriors on the battlefield and leading them to the exit.  This in turn allows you to play them in subsequent rounds.  Each warrior has different weapons suitable for different situations.  I found this combination of abilites and obstacles interesting.  However like many of these games it was frustratingly hard, so I don' know how much more I'd play it.  I played this game twice, so I'll value it at 50 cents.

Kid Chameleon did not make a good first impression on me.  It appears to be a pretty straight Mario rip off.  I did not like the art design.  I did not like 'Kid', just looked like a cool kid with sunglasses.  This game boasts many many levels, and many different power ups to gain, but I don't know if I have the stomache for more generic platformers.  I value at 25 cents.