Welcome back to the Mega Archive, slowly working its way through the holiday season of 28 years ago. November 1992 has proven to be a busy month, not least of which is because of what's arriving at incredible speed on the 24th; the anniversary for which I saw plastered all over Twitter a week ago. That would be Sonic 2sday, the North American release date of the second Sonic the Hedgehog game.

The rest of this entry's list might pale a little in comparison, but that's not to say that they don't also shine: we have some more Koei sims, including one that's far more contemporary than the rest; a couple of big names from the Amiga/Atari ST scene; the very first WWF game for the system; and... well, I guess there's the usual dire movie tie-ins and uninspired sports games too, but pobody's nerfect.

Talking of nerfect, here's a table of our past entries, which I'm evidently going to have to reorganize soon to make more space:

Part XXIV: 341-350 (November '92 - December '92)

341: NFL Sports Talk Football '93 Starring Joe Montana

• Developer: BlueSky Software
• Publisher: Sega
• JP Release: N/A
• NA Release: November 1992
• EU Release: December 1992
• Franchise: Joe Montana Football
• Genre: Football
• Theme: Football
• Premise: Are you ready for some football tonight? Yeah, me neither, but here it is regardless.
• Availability: Maybe when 2093 rolls around there'll be a fad for ancient sports video games that won't need their year abbreviations modified. Otherwise, nope.
• Preservation: Joe Cool graces the Mega Archive once again with this, the third in the longest running football franchise on the Genesis. Despite the turducken-chomping, telestrating EA goliath in their midst, Sega's still heavily invested in their own take on America's second-favorite pastime and its ongoing Montana endorsement, and their case is helped further by finally acquiring the NFL and NFLPA licenses (Joe's the only player the commentary ever mentions, however). We're also bringing back "Sports Talk": a label attached to Sega sports games that included an early, experimental form of live (if somewhat robotic) play-by-play commentary, making it feel like you were watching an episode of Monday Night Football while also playing it. As someone who doesn't know a P.A.T. from a R.P.O. from an A.C.L. tear, I couldn't tell you what kind of advancements and tweaks this edition saw compared to Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football (MA XIII) beyond the NFL's involvement but then significant modifications to the formula is not always the point of annualized sports series.

342: Predator 2

• Developer: Teeny Weeny Games, Krisalis Software
• Publisher: Arena Entertainment
• JP Release: N/A
• NA Release: November 1992
• EU Release: November 1992
• Franchise: Predator
• Genre: Top-Down Shooter
• Theme: Gettin' Too Old For This Alien Shit
• Premise: The Predator has found himself in LA with more armed targets than he can shake a human spinal cord at, and the cops have a hard enough time keeping the gangs under control without some near-invincible alien hunter gumming up the works. Plus it killed Bill Paxton, and that just won't do.
• Availability: Given the mixed reception of the most recent Predator game to come out, I think we can go without our old friends the Yautja for a while.
• Preservation: Not much to say about the game itself - like Alien³ (MA XXI) it took a violent and dark movie I was way too young to see when it first premiered and turned it into a brainless shooter, though in this case it uses the relatively rare top-down isometric perspective, with some chunky sprites and very NARC-like anti-drug messaging. Don't do drugs or the space monsters will get ya! Meanwhile, I spent a longer time than I anticipated figuring out who actually made this game. Turns out the antipodean Beam Software, who are often the culprits behind so-so licensed games, had a UK branch called Perfect 10 Productions who worked with a separate studio, Teeny Weeny Games (we Brits are notorious for bad company names), to produce the Genesis version. (Both studios would eventually merge to form Perfect Entertainment in the late '90s, which point-and-click fans might recognize as the developers behind the Discworld trilogy of graphic adventure games.) Meanwhile, the involvement of Krisalis Software (yet another UK developer) may only be limited to borrowing their proprietary Mega Drive sound engine, though a handful of sources insist they were connected enough to deserve a separate developer credit.

343: Shadow of the Beast II

• Developer: WJS Design
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• JP Release: N/A
• NA Release: November 1992
• EU Release: November 1992
• Franchise: Shadow of the Beast
• Genre: Action
• Theme: Beastmen Doing Yo-Yo Tricks
• Premise: The Beast is Back! Feral hero Aarbron narrowly escaped a life of servitude at the end of the first game, but discovers his younger sister has since befallen the same fate. I guess it's time to punch some weird alien monsters in the dick again.
• Availability: Unlike the first game, SotB 2 did not see a remake. Given the reception of that first remake I don't think it's likely to happen either.
• Preservation: Welcome back to Shadow of the Beast, Amiga's favorite son. I've always held the belief that the first game's style - delivered by British conceptual artist and occasional album cover illustrator Roger Dean - did much of the heavy lifting with regards to its positive reputation, and that holds true for this sequel also. Most of the game involves running around and getting lost in the forest, dying over and over to the same bizarre pointy monsters and cavepeople as they wear down your health and patience alike as you desperately seek an exit. It might just be that it's an action game that demands a little more investment, perhaps a better map or more practice evading everything, but I could never summon the willpower required to get anywhere. Personally I've always found games with no invincibility periods after getting hit deeply obnoxious. Originally a Psygnosis game, Electronic Arts took it upon themselves to port it over to Genesis presumably because they had more experience with the platform (by 1993 Psygnosis will have been bought by Sony, and would have even less to do with Sega as a rival console maker). The most telling addition to the Genesis version is a large black bar added to the bottom of the screen to account for the Genesis's slightly taller resolution; that the developers chose to fill that space with a blank void rather than some helpful HUD info or maybe just a nice leftover Dean graphic perhaps says more than enough about the circumstances behind the port and how much money was put into it. What is a little bit of a dilemma for me is that this is one of a few Genesis games that would see a Sega CD port a little while later, and the differences between the two Sega platforms are significant enough to necessitate a separate listing. This project's going to take a lot longer if the same games keep popping up in both lists...

344: Universal Soldier

• Developer: The Code Monkeys
• Publisher: Ballistic
• JP Release: N/A
• NA Release: 1992
• EU Release: November 1992
• Franchise: Universal Soldier
• Genre: Shooter
• Theme: Look For Something Hard
• Premise: Luc Devereaux was killed in action in Vietnam, but finds himself revived as part of the US military's top-secret Universal Soldier program. Unfortunately, so was his bloodthirsty sergeant...
• Availability: They were making Universal Soldier sequels up until 2012, but I don't think they garnered enough interest for video game adaptations.
• Preservation: I'm still in awe at the audacity of this one. Rather than try to launch Turrican II on the Sega Genesis legit, which shouldn't have been an issue given the success of other big-name (in Europe anyway) Amiga ports, Ballistic (an Accolade subsidiary) chose instead to simply change all the graphics so it could be a Universal Soldier movie tie-in game. Thus, instead of a cyborg soldier protagonist grappling with memories of his former life while attempting to elude a psychopathic rival, he's now inexplicably fighting aliens on a distant planet. I'm not even the biggest Turrican fan, but I'd imagine there are American fans who would've preferred an unaltered version of that second game on their Sega Genesis: instead, this is the only version of the game they would ever receive on any platform. The Genesis did eventually get a Mega Drive-exclusive sequel called Mega Turrican though, thereby proving someone was interested in getting their knock-off Metroid on without needing a second-rate Van Damme movie unconvincingly plastered all over it.

345: WWF Super WrestleMania

• Developer: Sculptured Software
• Publisher: Flying Edge
• JP Release: N/A
• NA Release: November 1992
• EU Release: 1992
• Franchise: WWE
• Genre: Pro Wrestling
• Theme: Having Your Twitch and YouTube Channels Taken Away
• Premise: Brother, are you ready to take on these 24-inch pythons in... wait, I should pretend to be one of the not-racist ones. Uh... Ooooh yeah!
• Availability: There's been a new WWE game every year since this one released, give or take. I'm not saying any of them are good, but they're more up to date at least. I don't think anyone's ever pined for the "Acclaim era" of anything.
• Preservation: Wrasslin! The Genesis has seen a scant few wrestling games here or there, but they tended to be Japan-exclusive fare like Thunder Pro or the joshi game Cutie Suzuki, or strange aberrations like Beast Wrestler. This would be the first Genesis game to be based on the world's most famous wrestling foundation, though certainly not the last. Oddly, though this game was developed for both Genesis and the SNES, there are significant differences between the two: not only are the rosters almost completely different (besides for mainstays Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage, and "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase) but the Genesis opted to include unique finishers for each wrestler, which the SNES eschewed for a universally interchangeable moveset between its slightly larger cast. This, naturally, became one of those hotly contested "which version is better" argument starters, which I half-suspect was Acclaim's plan all along. After all, if you're a WWE fan who owns both consoles and these versions are that different, you'd better get both, right? Utah-based Sculptured Software developed this one, but the in-game credits also mention Acclaim's "The Black Team": this was during a time when all of Acclaim's internal divisions were color-based. We'll get further into this Power Rangers shit when we cover more Acclaim titles.

346: Aerobiz / Air Management: Oozora ni Kakeru

• Developer: Koei
• Publisher: Koei
• JP Release: 1992-11-01 (as Air Management: Oozora ni Kakeru)
• NA Release: 1992 (as Aerobiz)
• EU Release: N/A
• Franchise: Aerobiz
• Genre: Business Simulation
• Theme: Avoiding the Temptation to Say "Revenue is Sky High!" at Shareholder Meetings
• Premise: Ever wondered what the deal was with airline food? Well, now you're in charge of it, along with the airline itself.
• Availability: There was a 1996 PS1/Saturn sequel but it never left Japan, and Koei's not touched Aerobiz since. I guess they're still trying to work out how to turn it into a Musou.
• Preservation: Aerobiz sees our strategic friends at Koei branch out into something that isn't a historical war sim, instead putting players in charge of a major airline company as it moves through the second half of the 20th century. The game is careful to pay attention to world events during this time: you don't have to plan commercial flights across WW2 Europe, fortunately, but you do have to contend with Cold War trade tariffs and other scheduled national disasters and periods of economic depression, as well as more financially lucrative events like the Olympics. There's even options to invest in charter companies, eventually absorbing them into your airline empire, and dabble in peripheral businesses like shuttle buses and hotels. Aerobiz is perhaps the most famous of Koei's "Executive Series," certainly of the games that saw international releases, but this business sim brand also included the stock market, high street fashion, thoroughbred horseracing, and one SFC game about trying to be the best VHS company (big future there).

347: Romance of the Three Kingdoms III: Dragon of Destiny / Sangokushi III

• Developer: Koei
• Publisher: Koei
• JP Release: 1992-11-08
• NA Release: February 1994
• EU Release: N/A
• Franchise: Romance of the Three Kingdoms
• Genre: Strategy Sim
• Theme: You Must Negotiate With Lu Bu For More Rice
• Premise: Time to put on those yellow turbans and declare war on your neighbors, because China isn't going to unify itself. Well, unless you switch every player to CPU.
• Availability: This is an iterative series, so you're best off with the most recent game to be localized. That would be Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV, released all the way back in February 2020 (in the before times).
• Preservation: Along with Aerobiz this month, Koei also had this Mega Drive port of the third Sangokushi game, released over here as Romance of the Three Kingdoms III: Dragon of Destiny. We've already covered the previous (and first) game from this series to be released on Mega Drive, Romance of the Three Kingdoms II (MA XV), and this one's much the same but for a very slightly different selection of scenarios across the Three Kingdoms conflict and a graphical update. I joked about Yellow Turbans, but it turns out fighting through said rebellion which normally prologues every Dynasty Warriors game (and is therefore where most people quit) is a privilege exclusive to PC Engine CD owners of this game: the other versions (Mega Drive, SNES, PlayStation, and the PC-98 original) don't have it or any equivalent bonus campaigns. I guess that's the one to get then.

348: Lemmings

• Developer: Sunsoft
• Publisher: Sunsoft (JP/NA) / Sega (EU)
• JP Release: 1992-11-20
• NA Release: November 1992
• EU Release: 1992-12-14
• Franchise: Lemmings
• Genre: Puzzle
• Theme: No, No, Dig Up, Stupid
• Premise: A hundred lemmings drop onto an island. Only one survives. You might need to do that level again.
• Availability: It was available everywhere at the time and has seen a bunch of ports and remakes since. I think the most recent version is for iOS/Android.
• Preservation: Lemmings is one of those games I'm always happy to talk about, but at the same time never quite sure why anyone would want to play a version that lacks mouse support. The precision and timing of the cursor movement in these stages is extremely tight, especially once you get to the "Taxing" and "Mayhem" difficulties, and I had a hard enough time with my Atari ST mouse summoning the rapid multi-tasking necessary to solve a lot of the later stages even after figuring out the puzzles - in some ways, it was good training for the PC RTS boom to come. To backtrack a little, Lemmings is the real-time puzzle game where you have to organize a group of dumb rodents by giving them tasks to perform: said task assignments are geared towards getting as many lemmings as possible to the exit door. The series went through a few iterations - the sequel introduced Lemming "tribes," each of whom had their own unique tasks to assign - but I've always liked the purity of the original most. Like many European-derived Genesis games, it was an Amiga/Atari ST success first, but unlike most this is a timeless and genuinely great game. Provided you have a mouse. (One thing I did discover about the Genesis version: it has a special stage featuring Sunsoft's Hebereke characters! The Hebereke franchise never even made it to the Sega Genesis (though it did see a few Saturn ports)!)

349: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

• Developer: Sonic Team / Sega Technical Institute
• Publisher: Sega
• JP Release: 1992-11-21
• NA Release: 1992-11-24
• EU Release: 1992-11-24
• Franchise: Sonic the Hedgehog
• Genre: Platformer
• Theme: Unkempt, Sedentary Man Has Rodent Problem
• Premise: Sonic's back, and this time he's brought that annoying little hanger-on from the neighborhood who is five years younger than everyone else that you try to ditch at every opportunity.
• Availability: Sega's going to make it very easy for you to buy Sonic 2. Try Steam.
• Preservation: I think there's a case to be made for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 being the finest Genesis game ever made. I also think there's a case to be made against that notion, depending on the type of games you typically enjoy, though if you were to collate all the entries from a hundred Genesis fan top-ten lists Sonic 2 would still make the most appearances. (I don't think there's much of a case for Sonic 3 being better, even with the Sonic & Knuckles expansion.) Either way, Sonic 2 is and would remain the system's killer app for a while, engendering a ridiculous level of hype before its release due to the success of the original that it delivered upon with its new features: a stronger soundtrack, more dynamic level design, an intriguing bonus game that used a facsimile of 3D motion, and an asymmetric two-player mode suited for either an equally skilled partner (the invincible Tails is invaluable for boss fights) or a curious kid sibling alike. I'm one of those totally bogus reprobates who insists the foundation of Sonic's game design is flawed - these are games that simultaneously encourage speedrunning and careful exploration - but I'll admit to spending a lot of time enjoying Sonic 2 as a prepubescent, despite not actually owning a Mega Drive until well into my adulthood. In terms of development background, it's all very well-trodden territory at this point but what maybe goes unnoticed about Sonic 2 is how much Sega of America was involved in its creation, via its Sega Technical Institute development branch. Sonic's attitude and design have always felt like he's had one red-sneakered foot in both the US and Japan. (And if I can't use this feature to talk about Sonic's feet, then what good is it?)

350: Andre Agassi Tennis

• Developer: Epyx
• Publisher: TecMagik
• JP Release: N/A
• NA Release: December 1992
• EU Release: August 1993
• Franchise: N/A
• Genre: Tennis
• Theme: Andre Agassi? The Wrestler?
• Premise: Tennis, much like divorce, is a game played in courts where love means nothing. Makes for some good video games though.
• Availability: I'm guessing there are tennis games with more recent stars and better physics/realism out there these days. (If you're looking to go the opposite direction that last Mario Tennis wasn't so bad, I've heard.)
• Preservation: Sometimes I wonder if these sports games that hitch themselves to the flavor of the week - Andre Agassi was an underdog until he won Wimbledon in 1992, which happened six months before this game launched - had the foresight to pick a winner beforehand or waited until the last moment to complete all the parts of the game where the famous sportsperson would be mentioned, like the title screen. I found conflicting sources on who developed this game: Epyx or TecMagik. The former are the famous California Games devs which generally worked on Atari platforms, while TecMagik was a UK company that had made a few Master System ports before this. What cinched it for me was the involvement of Greg Omi as AAT's lead design and co-producer: Omi's best known for his work with Epyx, in particular Klax and the Atari Lynx hardware, before eventually moving to Naughty Dog to help create the engines used by several Crash Bandicoot games and the first Jak & Daxter. It's possible TecMagik, which is credited during the intro, was the publisher instead.