First of all sorry for being completely absent here for the last 2 weeks. A lightning bolt has fried my PC and only now I could manage to gather the pieces--including a mother board--to revive it. I'll backtrack your blogs and the union in the next hours/days... :(

SEGA has been releasing some classic Genesis game-packs for PC through Steam for some time now. I've bought the first one a couple months ago and it's been a great time to recall my old 16-bit gamer glory (even though I was much more a SNES fanboy back then) with Altered Beast, Golden Axe and Comix Zone. But now after the release of the 4th pack I just wanted to state that it's a must buy for anyone into nostalgia or just curious about videogames history.

The pack brings its fair share of dominating genres at the time, and they're all well represented by the games roster: Beat'em-up (Streets of Rage 1 and 2--I still like Final Fight series more but SoR beat it when it comes to multiplayer on consoles and Yuzo Koshiro's soundtracks), shoot'em-up (two "gems" from Treasure, Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier, which is an old-school Bayonetta--if you don't believe me read this great review from Louie), isometric RPG (Shining in the Darkness and Landstalker, which coincidentally I only heard about--and got teased for--recently in a blog from Dave) and strategic RPG (Shining Force 1 and 2, a "Fire Emblem" series of some sort, before it reached Western shores). As a bonus you'll get Wonder Boy III (which has nothing to do with the rest but it's still a decent platformer anyway) and an FPRPG, Shining in the Darkness.

The pack costs $7.50--a really nice bargain when you come to think about buying those games on the Virtual Console (Wii) for instance, where they cost 800 points [$8] each. Also this pack has got a lot of games that aged well (you can read the re-releases reviews for the VC and most of them are still above 7.0 on GS staff's accounts).

This conversation leads me to...

Old games reviews. Man, I feel sad for seeing the oldies getting bashed by reviewers... Just because some lack of context. A couple weeks ago I was browsing NES games here at GS and I did notice somewhat of a pattern in reviewers' behavior: reviewers scores are always way below the "scorers-only" average. As if you NEED to be harsh to be a reviewer, as if being harsh alone was a sign of you not being narrow-minded. Come on, give the score you want, but since you care to write a review you gotta back your point of view with something concrete. Recently I reviewed Urban Champion and IMMO it's nothing less than a fair NES game for its time: one of the few 1-on-1 fighters back then, big/funny sprites, a decent variety on controls, multiplayer... It gets the job done--especially when you come to think it was released BEFORE Super Mario Bros. It doesn't deserve the 1.5 score it's been getting from reviewers--in fact it's much more around 5.0, the real score average in the game's space. /rant :P

Last one: I just started a blog to share my work in soundtrack/background music and to discuss the issue. I'm working on a soundtrack for a play right now and I can't wait to do something for videogames--be it flash, indie, whatever. I can even do it for free, I don't mind, I just want to do it. :P

I'm going to update it every Monday from now on, so stay tuned if you're interested.

Thanks for reading, have a nice day, week... life! :) I'll catch you. ;)