Captain S uses the rare Sega Mouse! While Internet only TV shows are common, it is rare to see ones devoted to the gaming crowd. One of the more amusing ones is The New Adventures of Captain S, a parody of the Captain N cartoon combined with the cheesiness of 90's sitcoms.

The plot involves Chad Belmont discovering he has the power to be sucked into his Sega Genesis in order to fight his evil nemesis, NES. Only 3 episodes have been produced so far, but the best by far is the most recent one, All's Fair in Love and Sega.

One of the major selling points for Nintendo's Wii system (at least for retrogamers) is its ability to easily play games from older Nintendo systems. For awhile, it seemed like Sony's PS3 system would counter by offering gamers access to the Sega Genesis/Megadrive lineup. Worthplaying is now reporting that this may not be the case after all, and that Sony is only "considering" this option.

Matthew Williamson has a funny column up at GameSetWatch called 'Parallax Memories' – The B-Fighters. This time, he looks at some pretty rancid fighting games for the Sega Genesis, including Primal Rage and Eternal Champions. "2D fighters are all but extinct now and many of these games are the reason why." Hmm...I must admit, I never understood the appeal of this genre of games. A couple thugs beating each other up with fake looking "martial arts" and the occasional fireball. Am I missing something here?

Sega-16.com has published an interview with Tom Kalinske, former president of Sega US. If you're a Sega fan or just interested in their rise and fall, it's worth your while to check this out. In a nutshell, Kalinske seems to imply here that what really ruined Sega was the overbearing Japanese division, whose petty jealousy and petulance over the American division's success caused them to turn down opportunities that would've kept them in the ring. For instance, they refused to purchase SGI's technology on the grounds that it "wasn't good enough," yet that same tech ended up in the Nintendo64. The Japanese division also refused to go in with Sony, who (after also being rejected by Nintendo) ended up releasing its Playstation (d'oh!). However, of course we have to bear in mind who all of these views are coming from, and it's no surprise that Kalinske wants to make himself look brilliant and everyone who disagreed with him as idiotic.

Odyssey2For those of us that love playing old classic consoles, but have moved on to newer monitors and TV's with video inputs, this site is for you: http://www.vikingvideogames.com. They offer modification services for most older consoles (in addition to other services). A few people on a ColecoVision forum I frequent have upgraded their CV consoles and say the work and results are very good.

Superman's Buns of SteelIn honor of the newly released movie, 1up has a very colorful feature up called Gamer's Kryptonite: Superman's 10 Worst Games. The article starts with Superman for the Atari 2600 and covers titles from many computers, consoles, and arcade machines. It's really curious how easy it is to take a big budget and really make a cringe-worthy game based on a mega-popular franchise. I mean, how hard can it be to get a Superman game right? I distinctly remember playing Superman: Man of Steel on my Amiga and thinking how lousy it was. Then again, Superman's powers don't necessarily lend themselves very well to a videogame--he's simply too powerful. It's hard to translate his powers into compelling gameplay. About the only challenge left would be strategic ones--assuming Superman can only be in one place at the same time (an assertion challenged in the movies). Should you save a bus from going over a bridge or Lois Lane from an earthquake?

IGN has a nice feature up about the worst coin-op conversions, and I bet we've all probably suffered through most of them. Yes, the VCS Pac-Man is on the list, as is Donkey Kong and Dragon's Lair for the SNES. I doubt any kid who received the SNES version of Mortal Kombat was happy on Christmas...One surprising entry is Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits for the GBA.