Cartridge Art of Renovation Products
I love my Sega Genesis (The Mega Drive for many of you non-North American gamers). While my childhood was spent playing the Atari, ColecoVision and the Nintendo Entertainment System, I matured both as a person and as a gamer during the run of the Genesis. I did what Nintendon’t. I was welcomed to the next level! I am unable to even think of the system without singing “Seeeeeegaaaa,” out loud.
With that in mind, I wanted to choose a game publisher that mostly published for this system. After taking a look through my personal cart stash, I knew the company to go with. Without further ado, let us take a look at the world of games from Renovation Products!
Earnest Evans
I know I am asking for a lot right off the bat, but let us leave all the Indiana Jones jokes out of this one for now. It would just be too easy. With that in mind, this cover is pretty awesome. We have our hero, Ernie, atop a speeding train, fending off some gangsters and some super HGH version of himself. Not only does Double “E” have to deal with that, he has a bi-plane flying it with both barrels blasting.
That is a ton of action on just one cover. Tack on the temple and jungle in the background, you have the kind of cover that makes me want to play the game. The best part of this cover: Earnest is blocking machine gun bullets with the golden idol in his hand. Okay, let’s face facts. How did Lucas not sue over this? The character in the game looks nothing like Indiana Jones (jeans, blond hair, long boots, etc)? How did they get away with it?
Gaiares
As ridiculous as this cover looks, it is completely accurate. This game is a horizontal shoot’em up where you are indeed the spaceship on the cover, and you do fight giant bizarre creatures as bosses. You do indeed fight a grim reaper, a blue-skinned mermaid with one heckuva beefy arm, and the strange green, ruby knuckle encrusted gladiator. . . thing. Sometimes truth in advertising is a little goofy and while this cover does indeed tell the truth, it does the game no justice. If you love games like R-Type and Gradius, this is a must-play. It has a unique weapon system, colorful graphics, and good action, everything you want in a shooter. Just open the case with your eyes closed, so you can forget about what’s on the cover.
El Viento (The Wind)
Our heroine here is displaying her powers in the game, hurling a little fire blast with one of her boomerangs ready to go. Something about these villains seems familiar? Well, this game is part of a trilogy of games where Earnest Evans was the first of the games. So, yeah! More gangsters!
Arrow Flash
Another shooter, another wacky cover. That space dragon looks angry as all heck. Like he was just cruising along in space, trying to eat himself some strange Princess Leigh hair bun having space fireflies when out of nowhere a giant mecha shows up to ruin his tasty meal. Is it me, or is the pilot of the robot a little too exposed? I mean, when I an engaged in a life and death struggle with a giant spaceborne draco-form I would like a little bit more between me and the cold, icy death of pure vacuum than a lens from half a pair of old school 3-D glasses. Armor is a wonderful thing. Might want to look into that.
Gain Ground
Wow! Don’t you want to play this game right now? This cover has so much going on it is hard to break it down. You got a werewolf with a laser gun on the top left. Some sort of white-eyed space marine bug man in the back. A crazy leaping monkey man to the right. An army of demon samurai on the bottom. We haven’t even gotten to the zoom yellow eggs thingy and orange planets yet! What about the heroes. Super deadly Samurai wielding a katana? Check. Space soldier warrior woman with a blaster pistol and skin-tight green and brown catsuit? Check. M. Bison blasting away with some sort of shotgun? Double-check! Gain Ground just gained my money!
