Tech N' Tactile
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Tech N' Tactile
Preservation Through Compilation: Featuring The SEGA Tangent You Didn’t Ask For, And Neither Did We
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Remember that feeling of discovering a treasure trove of gaming classics all on one disc? Cody and Michael take us back to the golden age of video game compilation discs, where players could experience multiple titles from gaming history without hunting down rare cartridges or obsolete hardware.
The conversation begins with Cody sharing how Sonic Mega Collection for GameCube became his gateway to experiencing Sonic 3 for the first time. This leads to a deeper exploration of how these compilations served as many gamers' first introduction to emulation, though few realized that's what they were experiencing. The hosts reminisce about the exceptional menu music, comic book scans, and hidden content that made these collections special beyond just the games themselves.
As they journey through gaming history, Michael and Cody discuss their favorite hidden gems discovered through compilations – from Vectorman and Comix Zone to the Echo the Dolphin series. They compare the technical implementation across different releases, noting how Sonic Jam for Saturn uniquely used the original source code rather than emulation to create an enhanced experience. This technical discussion reveals how compilation quality varied dramatically between platforms, with some breathing new life into classics while others suffered from poor implementation.
The conversation takes a nostalgic turn toward bootleg plug-and-play consoles – those peculiar controllers shaped like character heads that plugged directly into TVs. Despite their questionable quality and tendency to "smell like they're catching fire," these affordable alternatives provided many gamers their first taste of classics they might have otherwise missed.
What began as a planned discussion about various compilation discs across gaming history ultimately becomes a heartfelt tribute to Sega's efforts at game preservation when the Dreamcast's demise left beloved franchises in limbo. The episode closes with the hosts promising to continue exploring this rich topic in a future installment. Whether you grew up with these collections or are discovering them for the first time, this episode celebrates how compilation discs built bridges between gaming generations and preserved classics that might have otherwise been lost to time.
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Hello everybody, Welcome back to the Tech and Tactile podcast. As always, my name's Cody.
Speaker 2:And I'm Michael.
Speaker 1:And today I had a bit of a story continuing on from last week's episode that would lead into some, you know, a fun little topic, and that's about compilation disks. Last week, you know, we talked about emulation and all kinds of cool stuff. Last week, you know, we talked about emulation and all kinds of cool stuff. But well, I wanted to lead in with a story and then, you know, talk about compilation discs, because they're actually a big part of my childhood and it's just kind of a cool thing that I really wouldn't be able to discuss in a whole lot of detail. So I figured why not just talk about it now, just for the heck of it?
Speaker 1:So you know, growing up as a kid I was a big sega kid. I grew up with a lot of sega properties and everything and had a lot of their consoles and loved it. And, um, I was there with the dreamcast and watched it die, sadly, yep and uh. When it did, I didn't know what was coming next for uh, and I was just, like you know, depressed like damn, I'm going to lose out on all my cool Sega franchises. And then, next thing, I know they show up on the GameCube with all their Sonic games and stuff. And I got a little game growing up called Sonic Mega Collection on the GameCube and, oh boy, let me tell you, it led me down a rabbit hole that I didn't think that, uh, I would go down.
Speaker 1:But uh, you know, I grew up playing a lot of the Sonic games on real hardware but, uh, I never had Sonic 3. I had 1 and 2, but 3 I never did have. So I, that was the first time I ever got to play Sonic 3 and it was technically through a compilation disc which was emulation, like we touched on last week, correct, and it was just, it was a cool experience to be playing a Sonic game on a Nintendo console. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about today, really just about, well, compilation discs and plug-and-in plays, because I don't really have a huge, uh, I don't really have a lot to say about them. That was, that could take up, you know, forever, so why not talk about them today?
Speaker 1:right, yeah so so yeah, uh, I wanted to talk about that. So yeah, sonic mega collection. Uh, it was the first time I ever really was introduced to what emulation is, because you know, I told the story about how I found out that you can play mario 64 on a pc and everything.
Speaker 2:So like I didn't know that what I was playing was technically emulation a lot of people didn't realize that it was classified as emulation when it released back for the gamecube in 2002 either no, I mean, I don't really know if people really understood.
Speaker 1:You know emulation back then, unless you were a developer for emulators.
Speaker 1:But honestly it was a hell of a good collection like it was. It had so much content. I mean, we're talking multiple games, like you know a bunch of sonic genesis games, game, gear games. It had comic book, uh covers, concept art, a kick-ass menu theme. That was just so memorable. Yep, uh, like, literally, like it's so good and that that was like a big key part of my childhood. And uh comes to find out that there are uh other versions of that game that I never even knew existed, that had altered or different roms on there.
Speaker 2:Yep, I grew up with the one after yours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mega collection plus. I was super jealous because, like, I had a gamecube back in the day and I didn't have a ps2 until much later. So, uh, whenever I found out that the plus version was ps2 and xbox, oh man I was pissed. I didn't know there was a pc version, otherwise I probably would have got it because I had a pc back in the day. But uh, I mean, I think that pc version was pretty niche because I didn't know it existed until much, much later I would.
Speaker 2:I would also imagine, given the time frame, that the console variants of that would have been a lot more comfortable to play.
Speaker 1:More than likely. Yeah, pc games back in the day with controller support was well it was weird. It was before the Xbox 360 era, so controller support was kind of hit and miss with certain games. But yeah, the Mega Collection Plus I mean I love the original. Support was kind of hit and miss with certain games. But yeah, the mega collection plus I mean I love the original but plus just kind of blows it out of the water whenever it comes to its content.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, if I remember correctly, the original collection um back for the original gamecube in 2002. It was one of the. It was the predecessor to plus. It was created to kind of showcase sonic's history at the time and introduce its wide genesis library to um. Newer fans that you know never heard of it, especially for nintendo audiences, considering you know, the back in the day for the hardware divide and the company divides that were going on at the time. So you had I believe it was seven that you had right out the gate, which which included Sonic 1, 2, and 3, sonic and Knuckles, 3d Blast, spinball and Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and there was, uh, there may have been more that you could unlock, but I'm not uh certain about it. But yeah, I mean way to remind me that the Dreamcast died, asshole. Sorry about that. That's kind of why they did it, I'm pretty sure you know, just to introduce a new group of people to that kind of thing. But yeah, it was a hell of a collection. And then Plus came out and had even more games onto it. I mean, uh, like, my thing that I like doing was honestly just, it was that menu music. Man, I like looking at those comic book scans that they add and just listening to that music. That's a pretty big nostalgic little tickle for me as a kid.
Speaker 2:Um, thing for the plus version, that's um that always stood out to me specifically was how it gave you the ability, for the first time in any of the collections, to come out prior to have its own UI, as well as having its own remapping system for the titles, as well as all of the individual content that you could add ad. That came in like a separate plus menu, if that makes sense, because you gained access to all the Game Gear stuff individually, which included the Game Gear versions of Sonic 1, sonic Chaos, drift 1, labyrinth Blast and also Mean Bean Machine again.
Speaker 1:Two, though what they got against two, I don't know. I don't know. I'll tell you why. Because Sonic 2 and the Game Gear is fucking bullshit. Yeah, you ever played it. Did you get that first boss? Fuck that first boss. I'm nostalgic for the Game Gear version because I actually had it on real hardware and I played it through emulation. But fuck Sonic 2 and the Game Gear. Yep, I'm going to be the one to say it.
Speaker 2:I like it, I'm nostalgic for it, but damn, I wouldn't go back and play it if there'd be anything from the Game Gear that stood out to me, that being a really big love-hate relationship for me would have to be Spinball the Sonic Spinball Game Gear version.
Speaker 1:That's like a thing that I want to touch on later. Like I have this big soft spot for pinball games and Sonic Spinball is a big, big like a nostalgic factor in my life. I've got a lot of stories. I got a big story behind that game I would love to tell one day, but maybe I'll get there whenever I want to talk about more sentimental, uh you know, video game uh stories. But yeah, the game gear version of spinball didn't grow up with that and holy fuck, I'm glad I didn't. Oh god, no, thank you. But uh, you know, it's kind of funny. I keep talking about sonic because like they just kept busting out like a bunch of compilations because they had the sonic Gems collection and I had that on GameCube.
Speaker 2:That kind of touched on something that I wanted to ask you as well what was your favorite kind of hidden game that you could unlock, or what was your favorite unlockable from the collection that you played?
Speaker 1:One of them had, I think, vectorman. I don't remember which collection had it, but I remember it was on one of the collections. It was vector man. Um, hard as hell. Uh, like that was a hard ass genesis game. Um, that was probably my favorite thing that I unlocked that. Or um, yeah, yeah, I have to say that.
Speaker 1:Or rystar right one of them also had rystar a lot of people forget that that was sega's baby for a little while yeah, um rystar was like a hidden gem for me because I never I didn't grow up playing that on original hardware. That came through a compilation, uh, later, uh, sega. Sega killed it, not just with sonic compilations but with compilations in general. Like I played, there was like a um genesis classics collection on ps2 that I played.
Speaker 1:I had like altered beast, golden axe, like one and three, and all that on there and then I had a rice star and had like the mega drive version of streets of rage 2 and a whole bunch of other stuff like I um and don't oh man, don't forget my personal favorite of the mega drive collection that came out on the ps2 and, I believe, 360 later on as well. My favorite title from that collection specifically is always going to be comic zone you picked a hell of a title to have a favorite nostalgic thing for I'm very nostalgic for its music, I will admit did you ever beat it?
Speaker 2:you know, don't lie you know I don't believe I did, but hell if I didn't try I.
Speaker 1:I don't blame you if you didn't beat it because that game is hard. It was hard, that game that game is what would kick you in the teeth. If you beat that game, then I assume that you got some major hair on your chest Because, like that game Like genuine question though have you ever tried to play Comic Zone specifically with a Duke?
Speaker 2:No, that was hard.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I would really want to. You need a six-button controller to play. You could play Comic Zone with a three button Genesis gamepad, but it's meant to have six buttons. So, like you know these modern controllers, you know play it just fine.
Speaker 2:I did it all with the Duke.
Speaker 1:You know, talking about classic collection games that I didn't get to play on original hardware at least I don't remember playing it on original hardware was the dolphin echo, the dolphin echo.
Speaker 2:Oh, that just unlocked a memory for me yeah, echo the dolphin was like.
Speaker 1:That game scared the piss out of me as a kid not to mention having the same sound effect repeated 50 million times yeah, but I mean that part where you jump up in the air at the beginning and then all your dolphin buddies get sucked into a giant vortex. That scared the shit out of me as a kid. That was. That was terrifying. The echo series had three games correct? Uh, it was, that was actually a few. It was echo. Uh, then tides of time.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, well, that was a sequel in the Genesis. And then there was echo junior. There was a Sega CD version I have never played and I, uh, I would love to play that, um. But, and then there was a game that came out on the dream cast and then got ported to the PS two. It was like echo the dolphin defender of something like I don't remember. It was a 3d game and, uh, I only played it on the Dreamcast back in the day and there was a PS2 port, but you know, that was a core memory unlocked.
Speaker 1:I hear the game's coming back too. I hear they're bringing back Echo the Dolphin, oh yeah yeah, apparently the creator has announced something and they're bringing Echo back, so I'm excited for that.
Speaker 2:If I remember correctly from my time with the echo series, from back in the day when I used to have my little um, my plug-and-play genesis from all of them years ago from cvs- oh, you probably got those that at games, the brazilian thing, yep exactly, and that had um the echo series on it. If I remember correctly it. It was mainly tied around having your sonar and puzzles to save your friends, correct?
Speaker 1:Uh, no, the first game. Well, as far as I remember, you use your sonar. You're supposed to find a crystal in each level, or something like that, to get to the exit. So you had to use your sonar to find, find shit, um, and then you had to, like, charge through jellyfish and stuff.
Speaker 2:I specifically remember you would.
Speaker 1:It was side scrolling and you had to use your sonar, your different attacks and your breath management to go like segment by segment yeah, believe it or not, the sequel tides of time has a pseudo 3d section where whenever you would go to the past or whatever, it would go into a uh like almost rail shooter kind of thing where you're flying, like you know, in a pseudo 3d space with scaling and everything. It looked pretty cool for the time and you'd go through a bunch of rings and stuff. Uh, I don't remember too much about it. All I remember about Echo the Dolphin is that the later levels got super stressful whenever it comes to the breath management and then that final level can eat a bag of dicks because you're going through a giant alien spaceship.
Speaker 2:That was the one with the vortex right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the one with the vortex, the alien spaceship level, at the end. I don't know if you ever got to make it there, but if you did, oh man, uh, it was an auto scrolling level from hell and uh, yeah, that was not fun.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you that game was hard it was more confusing to figure out what to do than to actually do.
Speaker 1:For me, if I remember correctly, speaking of plug and play you know you're talking about that. I gotta know, like, what all did you have on that, those plug and play consoles?
Speaker 2:so, um, yeah, like what were the games that you yeah so typically, as you know, it had basically every rom set associated with the system and it would be like, oh, 500 games and oh, a thousand plus games, you know, all the time for all those bootlegs you used to see, but in reality all it was is you had the library. However, you had a few like um, I don't know if they'd technically be called like rom hacks of like custom titles that were that were obviously ripped from a base of a game, but everything was redone and, like you know, in a pirated style type thing, and it was all renamed and half the library was either copies or weird bootlegs of things that just didn't belong.
Speaker 1:I need to show you. I have the official and I need to get the CD variant of this, but it's so expensive and I hope it's gone down in price. But I have the Sega Genesis classic. No, it. I have the Sega Genesis classic. No, it's called the Sega Genesis Mini. Yeah, the one that was actually released by Sega, and I hacked it. I put Haxchi on it and loaded it with extra Genesis ROMs. That could have been with the system to begin with.
Speaker 1:But let me tell you, dude, it comes with two controllers and, oh my God, my memory, or my nostalgia, just gets hit in the feels looking at that thing. It's the coolest thing I own, because it comes with a fake sonic, the hedgehog cartridge you put in the slot, and it has a little sega cd add-on that you can clip onto the side of it. Oh, it's so good, yeah, so good. Um, I always wanted to get my hands on the NES and SNES classic, but I never, I never did get my hands on that. And then there's a Sega CD variant that got released that I think is exclusive to Amazon, that I really want to get my hands on. But, um, you know, speaking of plug and plays, uh, that reminds me, just just for the heck of it. Uh, I had a plug and play like I had several plug and plays whenever I was growing up that had a bunch of ROMs on there, and one of them I had in the nineties. Um, it was a Nintendo 64 controller that had a fake analog stick in the middle.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So, like you couldn't move it or anything, but you could use the D pad and what it was is, you plugged it into your tv and I would always remember this thing would get super hot and smell like it's catching on fire and old classic plastic smell yes, and it would have like a crap ton of roms on it. That's how I played the original nes car contra and a few other games that on the library, like that your first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was the first time playing Contra. The first time I ever played Contra was on this plug-and-play bootleg system. I don't know what it was or how it was, but it looked like an N64 controller, but it was an NES. Oh, I love that thing.
Speaker 2:Maybe we're going to have to dig these out when we get back to our places at some point soon, the ones that I remember having that I I probably spent the most time with my genesis. That I bought the one from at games, the one I had prior to that for a few years, that I I probably ran into the ground. I used it. So much was the atari flashback 2 oh yeah, that uh hasn't surprised me.
Speaker 1:I I mean, it was boot. I have a soft spot for the bootleg uh consoles. But I gotta tell you, man, once I show you the genesis mini, you you won't.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it's such a neat little little looking system knowing me and you, I would love to see what's inside the thing, because I like seeing what makes the hardware tick oh, oh, yeah, for sure, I would love to do that one day.
Speaker 1:Actually, you know, if I ever bring back another episode for this, for the podcast, or just talking about nostalgic shit that I love. I would like to talk about the TurboGrafx-16.
Speaker 2:You can get the TurboGrafx-16 Mini or the PC Engine Mini, the first game you would talk about.
Speaker 1:for that too, as well, you know what the funny thing is it's not on the mini system.
Speaker 2:Really Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:Really For shame. The other one is For shame, xeno, or what is it called.
Speaker 2:Alien.
Speaker 1:Alien Crush. It's there, yeah, but not fucking Devil's Crush. No, sir, you Bob, it's not there. That's a big sin. They have uh splatterhouse on there, though there's a few other classics, but I I have one day I'm gonna get my hands on that and I'll just. I just love to talk about everything in general, but you know, I got sidetracked with all this. I gotta talk more about, uh, some compilation discs that I just kind of grew up playing. Um, there was one before the dreamcast died and I would love. It's just kind of funny. Um, there was a compilation disc called sega smash pack and then it had volume one. They never made a volume two because the dreamcast died before I guess it could come out. But that's how I played a few games for the first time, which was weird, like I played, ironically, shining Force and Phantasy Star 2 for the first time on Sega Smash Pack.
Speaker 2:Technically, I so you had Volume 1, correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's all that was on there.
Speaker 2:That would be the one that had Vectorman on it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, right, right right. That's where I first played it Vectorman for the first time. Also, that's where I played Golden Axe for the first time. I didn't actually get to play that on official hardware. I had Golden Axe for the first time. I didn't actually get to play that on official hardware.
Speaker 2:I had Golden Axe for the first time on my AT Games Genesis.
Speaker 1:See, that was a better experience than the Sega Smash Pack, because that sound, the emulation sound on there was. Oh, it was not good.
Speaker 2:Also, I was a little upset as well for the Sega the pack collections, because Comic Zone wasn't included until a later release. On what For Sega Smash Pack, it wasn't released until Volume 2.
Speaker 1:Wait, there's a Volume 2?.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's a few different ways it was set up, because you had the Dreamcast version. Yeah, sega Smash Pack Volume 1. There's four different additions to what that came out on. It was split up into two volumes for the PC discs.
Speaker 1:PC discs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it came out on PC discs. What, yes, it did Hold up.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, I that's, I've what, mm-hmm. Okay, that makes sense. There was. There was some windows games on there you could play.
Speaker 2:The pc versions had things exclusive to them that were nowhere else the fuck including what I'm just finding out about this.
Speaker 1:I literally I had no idea, like, okay, so I played virtual cop on there on the one for the Sega Dreamcast, and then there was a game called Sega Swirl Fucking love that. And they would both say Windows CE. Right, they said Windows CE games and I was like, wow, windows is running on Dreamcast. Okay, that's cool. But I didn't know there was like other versions of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't feel bad though, because it definitely wasn't the most not looked at version.
Speaker 1:If you want the version that was the most neglected it was the one that came out on GBA Sega Smash Pack. Yep, there's a Sega Smash Pack on GBA. No, I gotta see this. Oh, the emulation must be so bad. There was only three games for the GBA version. Ohulation must be so bad, there was only three games for the gba version.
Speaker 2:Oh, it must be so bad. What were they? Golden axe, echo and spinball.
Speaker 1:Oh, my god, spinball on the gba sound font. I gotta see it. Oh man, I got. Oh, oh, I know what I'm good, I gotta go look at this up. Whatever I've done recording this Like oh my god, sega Smash Pack is a big nostalgic thing for me. Like that was like what I played a lot back in the day with my buddies or my cousins who would come over. We'd play like get like Dreamcast controllers and play some Golden Axe or Streets of Rage on there, streets of Rage on there, streets of Rage 2. That's how we would, you know, go about things.
Speaker 2:The fact that they made more and oh man, I gotta see this. They were trying to expand their market, but god, it failed miserably.
Speaker 1:See when they released their Classics collection on PS2 and then Xbox and everything like that. It was better because the emulation was way better after that. And you could also probably like remap controls and everything, because you know, after sonic mega collection you can start remapping controls. All a good accessibility for me, yeah uh anytime you can remap controls is always a good blessing, right, exactly? Oh man, I I'm, oh my god, I got. I. Just I'm flabbergasted. My brain is now.
Speaker 2:It was one of the first collections that was trying to tailor toward the PC market for the PC ROM discs. And I don't know if you remember but I had the I forget which like DLC collection it was, but kind of off topic I was. I had the PC box, for I want to say it was Final Fantasy 11. It was Final fantasy something, I think it was 11. And you know how the, the PC ROMs come in them big, thick ass cases.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was the same for every one of them, like every uh that that's not actually so. I don't know how much of a you know big PC gamer you uh got to experience for physical PC games, but all PC games came in these ginormous ass boxes with multiple.
Speaker 2:They were like VHS cases, but for PC games.
Speaker 1:They were huge, like you would open up like a little box, like it's a little book, and then you would like pull the actual case out of the box and then you'd open that case up and there'd be more manuals.
Speaker 2:And it reminds me kind of like what lost Odyssey was on the three 60 only way back in time.
Speaker 1:Kind of kind of a little bit. But oh man, my brain is fried. I was going to talk about some other compilation discs. Like this whole thing was literally about me talking about compilation discs and now I'm just kind of like I gotta, I gotta go look at the. I love dumb things, that really don't. I gotta look this.
Speaker 2:Another one that I'll kind of talk about for you. Probably one of the greatest marvels of hardware and what it was able to pull off with the hardware for the year and the time and for what it had, was Sonic Jam for the Saturn.
Speaker 1:You know I grew up playing that and I gotta tell you I spent most of my time in Sonic World, where you can run around in a giant 3D space, because seeing Sonic in 3D back then was kind of all I wanted to see.
Speaker 2:It was the first time it ever happened too.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And then I got to watch all these Japanese commercials that looked really insane, like the Sonic 3 Japanese commercial is probably one of my favorites, I love it. And then I got to see the sneak peek to the Sonic OVA and I didn't get to watch that until much later in my life Because, like I was like so interested A Sonic anime, I'll watch that.
Speaker 2:Now I don't know if this probably technically counts as an anime, At least I think watch that Now I don't know if this probably technically counts as an anime, At least I think it should. But probably one of my first exposures to Sonic media outside of, like you know, the old games on the Genesis and stuff growing up that I actually watched to completion when I bought the DVD, for it was Sonic Underground.
Speaker 1:Oh God, you poor soul. Oh God, no, Get that out of my memory.
Speaker 2:Well, hey, you can't lie. It had a catchy opening theme, at least for the time.
Speaker 1:That had a catchy opening theme, but fucking God. He had a sister named Sonia.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And another one that was on the drums called Manic Yep. Watching that damn show made me manic, oh God. I mean I got some nostalgia for it. But I'll take Saddam Sonic over that, or Long John Baldry or whatever his name is, from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, because I love YouTube and I believe.
Speaker 2:Correct me if I'm wrong. This is digging in my memory of my brain. But wasn't Jim Cummings the voice of Robotnik? For that?
Speaker 1:Yes, he was, and it was awesome as hell. Very cool Robotnik, very menacing.
Speaker 2:If I had to pick my favorite two Eggman slash Robotniks of all time, it would definitely be Jim Cummings and Mike Pollack. Those two were the GOATs.
Speaker 1:Hey man, hey, hey, hey, don't disrespect Dean like that. Dean Bristow is awesome, All right. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 and Heroes are really good, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I ain't disputing either had some kick-ass music.
Speaker 1:Fuck me. You know I was gonna talk about all this cool compilation discs and this damn episode ended up being nothing about. Like all about Sega and Sonic the Hedgehog and shit. Like I may as well just call this episode why I'm a Huge Sega Fanboy and why I Wish the Dreamcast Didn't Die or some shit. I don't know. We'll figure all that out in post, probably. I don't know where else I'm going to talk about this, so I may as well talk about some other cool ass compilations that I did.
Speaker 2:I want to kind of wrap up talking about some of the points that I wanted to make for Sonic Jam, specifically with. I want to kind of wrap up talking about some of the points that I wanted to make for Sonic Jam, specifically what it did with its hardware, because not a lot of people realized that it was not a straight ROM dump. That was all done and recompiled for that system from straight source code. No emulation, just pure raw performance based on hardware.
Speaker 1:You'll never see that happen again either. That was like the first time that they actually tried to improve the genesis games and then after that it just went back to the genesis games.
Speaker 2:They never used sonic jam yeah, it's ridiculous when you like, when you see it work, how, by doing them straight with source code, that the audio chipset was able to reproduce better. It was able to have more stable and even higher frame rates in some cases, as well as just having it was so much more well-blended than a lot of the compilations. That seemed like a lot of throwing together and duct tape together at the cracks and seams, but at least for Jam on the Genesis it was all based on what the console was able to provide.
Speaker 1:No hiccups or anything. Yeah, the Saturn, the one thing you're not going to notice. Well, the one thing that not a lot of people really take into consideration when it comes to that game is the difficulty modes they have. The difficulty modes alter the game in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 2:It was the first time that that happened in any Sonic release as well. For that that was completely unique to that collection.
Speaker 1:Nowhere else that happened yeah, I say I think, uh, origins has like a difficulty thing, but it, it's not the same as what they do it alters. Sometimes it heavily alters certain levels, uh in the uh collections, especially like sonic 3, and knuckles it.
Speaker 2:It changes a good bit as far as I remember now yeah, because it used to be a buggy mess for a lot of different consoles yeah, um, especially the ds version oh oh yeah, the ds compilation that had all of them on there, like the fact that they got that run on there could not take it.
Speaker 1:No, no, if you want to talk about something that could not handle with emulation with a DS sound chips, I got to check out the smash pack because I this is something I've my mind is blown still about that. But that would be Sonic the hedgehog for GBA for the 15th anniversary. Who, boy? Let me tell you that is not a good way to play a Genesis game. Let me tell you for sure, it was not good, very bad, that sound chip, and I don't know what it is, because Sonic Advance 1 through 3 had already been out by then and those games are freaking awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh man, Sonic Advance. We gotta do an episode about those.
Speaker 1:I would love to talk about Sonic Advance. I mean, I'm just talking about it. I could talk about it now, but I won't. Those games ran ridiculously good on the Game Boy, but like Sonic the Hedgehog, I guess it's because it was a port. I don't know if it was technically emulation, but man, that game ran poorly, I don't believe so to memory that game had.
Speaker 1:It was terrible screen crunch, the sound effects were awful, yeah, the music was just not good. The frame rate was terrible. Uh, I remember being so jealous back in the day because my mom uh bought this for a kid, uh, that we knew who, uh, and I was so jealous because I was like I want to play sonic on the go and she's like you have, you have three sonic advanced games or you have like sonic one, like advanced one and three. I didn't have two and I was like you know, I was like a spoiled brat back then. I was like I wanted this one, damn it.
Speaker 1:And looking back on it, I dodged a bullet yeah, I never owned sonic advance as a kid, and or not sonic advance? Uh, sonic the hedgehog advanced yeah, or whatever they were they were very unique titles considering the hardware that they were on yeah, um, I didn't really also have the Genesis collections on the DS. I had the ones that came out for the PSP. I was more of a PSP kid back in the day because you know, everyone had their Nintendo.
Speaker 2:You were the PSP kid, I was the DSi kid during that time period. For the DSi I had the original Classics Collection for the main four, which just include, I believe, believe one through three and knuckles at the time right.
Speaker 1:I had, uh, I don't know which one. I had one on the psp that had like a crap ton of sega roms on there and like I think I have like comic zone and a whole bunch of other stuff. I don't quite remember. It's been a while. I had quite a few compilation discs of uh emulation on the psp, including namco arcade or not, neco. Yeah, I think it was like a namco museum or there was a namco museum.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I had that on. That was on. I had that on gamecube I had that on flipping everything like it came out on everything. Damn it. Yeah, ps1 gamecube.
Speaker 2:I had one on gba like you obviously had the classics like pac-man and galaga um dig dug yep, my, my personal favorite of namco museum. May it soul rest in peace.
Speaker 1:Dig dug will forever love that game and its soundtrack uh, there was one I had on the gamecube where, uh, they had like arranged versions of each game and I remember playing dig dug, arranged, where it had boss fights and everything and right, oh, I love that, it was so good, but damn it, everything I ever owned. I had namco. That that was so good, but damn it, everything I ever owned. I had Namco Museum. I had it on PS1. I had it on flippin' DBA. I had it on GameCube. I had it on like Xbox 360. Like everywhere there was a Namco.
Speaker 2:Museum. I played Big Dog religiously when I had it.
Speaker 1:I had on the PSP. On the PSP I had, I had a Midway arcade collection and that's how I got introduced. Yeah, I got introduced to a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:That reminds me of MK I. What was it? Mk one? And it had a rampage. I want to say yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So this one, it had like a gauntlet the original gauntlet for arcades, and then it had rampage and then it had, uh, some kind of uh robot game like uh, where you're running around in a weird 3d space. I don't remember all the arcade games on there, uh. Another uh compilation disc that I absolutely loved growing up playing was, uh, what was it called? Uh uh, intervision lives or whatever it's called it's. It's the game that had all the uh, the and oh in television lives. That's what it's called didn't.
Speaker 2:This is gonna be not really remembering my um, my midway quite well, but didn't nba jam, wasn't that involved with midway?
Speaker 1:I believe so, but I don't think that was on any compilation that I got to play. Unfortunately, I don't think they had NBA Jam on there, as far as I remember Right yeah. I had that on Xbox Live Arcade and NBA Jam is.
Speaker 2:Because you had a lot of Midway crap on plug-and-plays as well.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there was so much yeah Like so much Midway games games.
Speaker 2:It was sad because they didn't focus on the quality. They just wanted you to slap two double a batteries and an rc cable to your crt and call it a day right I had.
Speaker 1:I had a lot of. Uh see, there was a spider-man plug and play that I had. That was like oh no, not that one. It looked like a spider-man head with like a giant spider-man dick as a control stick.
Speaker 2:It looks ridiculous. That's exactly. There's no other way to say it. That's exactly what it was.
Speaker 1:Some kind of really crappy side scroller on there, and then I had one where you climb around a building disarming bombs was it?
Speaker 2:wasn't that side scroller the one for g like? Was that not? Not GBA or no, I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Hell, no, it was its own thing, it was not. These weren't ROMs, this was. This was its own little crappy thing. And then my cousin had a SpongeBob one that looked like his head with the control stick for the nose and his eyes with the buttons, and it was just a whole bunch of, uh, random ass like things that you'd play.
Speaker 1:Uh, those are specifically emulation. But you know, see, I was gonna talk about all this cool compilation stuff. I had all these stories in mind about all the cool things that I got to play, and now I'm sidetracked because now there's more shit that I didn't get to enjoy as in my childhood.
Speaker 2:That well, well, hey at least me and you can both collectively say that, when it comes to compilation discs, we know everything about sega, because that's apparently all that the majority of the market was for us and apparently, I was gonna talk about.
Speaker 1:I had all these cool stories about namco uh museum, because it's on flipping everything and that it was and and then enter uh, flipping everything, and that it was. And and then enter uh, uh, it, uh, what. What was that? Intervision lives? No, what not. Intervision midway? Damn it. No, not midway. Uh, in television, god I couldn't pronounce it in television lives with all the television games.
Speaker 1:And then and then, oh man, my brain is fried. I gotta, I gotta go get, I gotta go find sega smash pack. I need to complete my childhood. Yes, you don't need to complete your childhood. It's like seeing the first movie of something and you're like there's a part two to this right, and then you find out years later that there was a part two because you, you know, didn't get to watch part two at the time. And all right, now I gotta go complete my crappy childhood. Uh, so maybe I'll talk more about flipping a compilation discs that come to my mind, because there's so many and I have so many stories that I'd like to share.
Speaker 2:But well folks, there may be a compilation disc episode part two. Yeah, yeah, okay, let us know your thoughts down below in the comment sections where you're able, If you would like to always leave us some feedback on our website at techintactilecom Cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do that, and as always, you know, uh, this is interesting, as always, stay accessible. Folks, indeed, stay accessible, thank you.