SegaMasterSystem.com is back!

[ShinobiMan]

http://www.segamastersystem.com/sms_char_collage copy.png

Hey gang. I've relaunched my old website SegaMasterSystem.com (http://www.segamastersystem.com/).

Some of you might remember when the original site was online around 2000-2005.

I've been very fortunate in my life to be surrounded by many talented friends who want to see my vision for this site come true. It's going to be a very different kind of SMS site... think Penny Arcade meets Screw Attack, but all about the SMS!

We launched it last night with what is perhaps the very first Sega Master System themed short film, Snail Maze Craze. There's a few other pages up, including an ABOUT page that has a neat old home movie of when I first received the MS for my birthday.

Anyways, it's all a labor of love, and I hope you enjoy what we're coming up with and stay tuned for more!

Feedback is greatly appreciated and almost necessary for a site like to continue and improve. Thanks!

[T]

Good to see.

Congratulations!!

[Satoshi_Matrix]

This is fantastic.

I'm in the planning stages right now for another of my signature top 100 game editorials. As I did for the Famicom and am currently doing for the GameBoy. I recently got an SMS and am really loving it. There are so many great games that never came out on NES or are better than their NES counterparts. Sure, the NES is the better of the two due to its insane library, but the SMS isn't the dud most North American retro gamers think it is.

Will you guys be talking about the huge number of fantastic European exclusives? I'd say at least half of the best games for the SMS were not released in the US or Canada.

[Bazoo]

Just wanted to express my enthusiasm for this as well! Master System is my favorite. I'll be sure to join the community.

[Wraith Storm]

It sounds like you are very passionate about the system and that shines through in the writing.

I also loved the video from your birthday and how excited you were. You had some awesome parents to get you a Master System and like 20 games!

I remember having Christmas and birthdays like this fondly, but unfortunately I don't believe my parents recorded much of it so it only lives on in my memories.

[ShinobiMan]

Will you guys be talking about the huge number of fantastic European exclusives? I'd say at least half of the best games for the SMS were not released in the US or Canada.

Oh yes. In fact, our next short film (already shot) is about a European exclusive title. Won't say which one just yet! I can tel you some of the next few videos "in the can" are more along the lines of reviews and collecting.

Thanks for your kind words guys! We're very excited to bring you this content, and knowing that what we're producing is being well received definitely fuels the fire!

[Emperor Megas]

Who's the blonde girl that Harry's holding onto?

[ShinobiMan]

Who's the blonde girl that Harry's holding onto?

Why that's Catherine from Laser Ghost!

http://pics.mobygames.com/images/covers/large/1136114283-00.jpg

[ShinobiMan]

Got some new content up! The first video in a series we call "The SMS Hunt".

http://segamastersystem.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=videos&action=display&thread=9

Check it out! Would love some feedback!

[retroman]

nice site..checked it out and joined..I am a big SMS fan.

[Emperor Megas]

I'm a huge SMS fan as well. The SMS and TurboGrafx16 are near and dearest to me.

It's great just knowing that there's a fan site registered to the domain segamastersystem.com at all.

[Koa Zo]

This is fantastic.

I'm in the planning stages right now for another of my signature top 100 game editorials. As I did for the Famicom and am currently doing for the GameBoy. I recently got an SMS and am really loving it. There are so many great games that never came out on NES or are better than their NES counterparts. Sure, the NES is the better of the two due to its insane library, but the SMS isn't the dud most North American retro gamers think it is.

Will you guys be talking about the huge number of fantastic European exclusives? I'd say at least half of the best games for the SMS were not released in the US or Canada.
Looking forward to seeing you do a SMS video. Indeed almost half of what I'd consider to be the top games are exclusive to Europe and/or Australia.
I have a 25-in-1 cart from Korea which has a collection of MSX conversions. There is some major potential if people started doing new MSX conversions, I wonder what games could be brought over to SMS? Hopefully we'll see some discussion about this over on SegaMasterSystem.com

[XYXZYZ]

I don't like the Sega Master System. I want to like the Sega Master System. I find the SMS games I've played to be rather dull and uninspired, or just a chore to play. And I know I'm not alone, SMS isn't a very popular system. So, I'd like to see you do some videos directed at SMS detractors, and show us what we're missing out on, maybe make some points about why we should give the SMS another chance.

[retroguy]

Cool site, but I wouldn't say that Sega was the Walt Disney of gaming. I think a better analogy would be to say that Nintendo is the Walt Disney of gaming and Sega is more like Max Fleicher in that their stuff was always high quality but, for the most part, it didn't catch on the way it should have and they spent most of their time in the Console Wars playing catch-up.

I have a suggestion: If you're going to be doing videos regularly, it would be neat to see some short films based on SMS games. Zillion would be a good one.

[sloan]

I love Master System, and the site looks promising, but I want to know why the original site closed down, and is this one around for the long haul before getting too excited.

[ShinobiMan]

I love Master System, and the site looks promising, but I want to know why the original site closed down, and is this one around for the long haul before getting too excited.

Original site closed down when I was 19 years old in 2005. I'd had it since I was 13 or 14 years old and had grown tired updating it (really kind of ran out of ideas, way before my foray into video production). That, coupled with the start of college led me to the decision to let another webmaster take over. Somewhere along the line, the domain name failed to be renewed and we lost it to one of those premium domain sellers. They wanted an arm and a leg for the domain, so it remained lost for 8 years until the price dropped significantly and my wife purchased it back for me as a wedding gift!

Essentially, the site is going to be an outlet for me to create short films and other such videos about the Sega Master System. We've got a web comic in the works, and I'm encouraging other SMS fans to make videos as well and submit them to the site. Kind of like a Blisterthumbs.net community but just centered around the Sega Master System... (for now). I say for now because it would be awesome to branch out into other Sega territory in some way. But that's a discussion for another time probably way down the line.

Thanks for taking an interest and please stick around and contribute. I won't let the site disappear like I did before.

[scaleworm]

Thank you and congratulations!. A Great system!

[ShinobiMan]

Thank you and congratulations!. A Great system!

You're welcome!

Got our first video review online this morning. It's for MY HERO.

http://segamastersystem.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=videos&action=display&thread=18

As this is the first one, feedback is GREATLY appreciated. I tried to take a more laid back, semi-scripted approach. I hope that yielded good results!

Thanks!

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I don't like the Sega Master System. I want to like the Sega Master System. I find the SMS games I've played to be rather dull and uninspired, or just a chore to play. And I know I'm not alone, SMS isn't a very popular system. So, I'd like to see you do some videos directed at SMS detractors, and show us what we're missing out on, maybe make some points about why we should give the SMS another chance.

While the Master System isn't the obvious winner the NES/Famicom is, it does have quite a few things going for it. Here's a few reasons why I think the Master System is a better system than most North American gamers give it credit for -

The ascetics - No matter if you think the NES is ugly or not, there's no denying that the Master System is a thing of beauty. The whole black/red retro-futuristic look of the console makes the Master System look high tech, even today.

Powerful 8-bit hardware - Just take a look at any random game and compare it to an NES title. Even the most advanced and best looking NES games only fall even to the worst looking Master System games. At it's best, visuals on the SMS almost look 16 bit. Just look up the Master System version of Road Rash to see what I mean.

Built in RGB encoder for SCART or S-Video - While the NES is limited to RF or Composite (unless you replace the PPU from a Nintendo arcade cabinet) the SMS can do it all - RF, Composite, S-Video (modded) and even RGB. SMS games look fantastic on the original hardware

Mono FM synthesis thanks to the YM2413 - A possible mod that can be done is a board for the unused expansion port. This gives the SMS FM synthesis capabilities in about 50 games. When installed, it makes the games that support it sound leagues better than what is possible on the NES. The only Famicom game to match the sound was Lagrange Point, thanks to the VRC7, a modified version of the Master System FM chip.

Region free gaming - Unlike the NES, the Master System doesn't completely freak out if you try and run PAL games on an NTSC console or vise-versa. Almost all PAL exclusive games run completely fine on an NTSC Master System without any modifications needed. Japanese Master System are region locked because of different cart shape though, just like the Famicom/NES.

Hard plastic game cases - Common place with disc based games for the past decade, Sega had this going on more than twenty years ago. Yes, the often super simplistic cover art is largely awful, but SMS cases have aged FAR better than NES cardboard boxes, and was and still is a better choice.

A smaller library than the NES, filled with less duds - With about 340 titles produced worldwide, the Master System didn't get much shovelware, especially compared to the NES. There are some bad games for it of course, but your chances of finding a game you've never heard of and it being good are better on SMS than NES.


Retentively low prices, even for complete games - Thanks to the hard shells, most owners have kept the cases and the manuals over the years. Almost all SMS games are easy to find complete for around the same kind of prices most NES games sell for loose. This isn't always the case as some games have held their value or inflated in value, but for the most part the SMS is affordable to collect for.

Light Phaser games - For the most part, the light phaser games are better than the zapper titles for NES. There are also more of them on SMS than NES.

Sega's own arcade conversions - The SMS had excellent ports of the many arcade games of the day. Outrun, Space Harrier, Altered Beast Alex Kidd The Lost Stars and so on.

Fantastic European exclusives - Because the SMS was MUCH more popular in PAL territories, developers over there made games for it throughout the early 90s producing at least half of the best titles for the system. On the other hand, most of the NES games that stayed in Europe sort of suck.

Shooters - The Master System saw quite a few rather good shooters, especially Astro Warrior, Scramble Spirits, R-Type and Power Strike 2. These are a blast to play.

Most of the Sonic games - With only a few exceptions, the 8-bit Sonic games on SMS are really good. They aren't as fast as the 16-bit games, but that's not a fair comparison given the vast hardware differences. For what could be done on the hardware, each are impressive, especially Sonic 2, Chaos and Triple Trouble.

Phantasy Star, Ys, and Golden Axe Warrior - The Master System didn't have a lot of RPGs, but it did have Phantasy Star. Far more technically advanced than NES RPGs like Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior, Phantasy Star is an incredibly well crafted forward thinking RPG that offered gamers in 1988 a glimpse into what RPGs would be like in the future. As a retro game, it's aged wonderfully and still is quite eye catching and playable. It's an example of a game that even with advanced mappers probably couldn't be reproduced on the NES, and is a shining jewel on the Master System and one of the key reasons to own the system.

[ShinobiMan]

Just put up a new video called "Alex Kidd In High Def World"

http://www.segamastersystem.com/vid_thumbs/AKIHDW_thumb_small.png

http://segamastersystem.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=videos&thread=45&page=1

It's a look at the recent increase in Alex Kidd awareness on Sega's behalf in recent years.

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!