Is Keith Courage the worst pack in game ever?!

[treismac]

I know it's not considered a "bad" game, but I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Wii Sports.

Considering Nintendo wanted to, and succeeded, marketing the Wii as a video game system for the whole family, the game was a slam dunk. I've known people of many different age groups who rave about Wii bowling, so they achieved what they wanted to with the pack-in. Other than bowling, it is a lousy bunch of games though.

[todesengel]

I think Keith Courage was a decent pack-in and did a pretty good job of showing off the system. Hell the Japanese version of Keith Courage was one of the first PC Engine games I got when I bought a Duo-R. People hate on this game way too much, it's not great but it's fun.

[kedawa]

Sol-Feace is the best pack-in the Sega CD ever got, for whatever that's worth.

[Zing]

I know it's not considered a "bad" game, but I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Wii Sports.

It would be a bizarre mention in a thread discussing the worst pack-in games considering Wii Sports was worth buying a Wii even if you never played anything else.

[Emperor Megas]

Sol-Feace is the best pack-in the Sega CD ever got, for whatever that's worth.

I like the SEGA Genesis Arcade Collection|Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective combo pack better. I didn't care about Sherlock Holmes (I've still never played it), but it did have Columns, Revenge of Shinobi, Golden Axe and Streets of Rage. I'm probably the only SEGA fan who doesn't like Streets of Rage, but the combination of the other games are better than Sol-Feace, IMO.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I know it's not considered a "bad" game, but I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Wii Sports.

It would never come near my "worst" games list ever.

It would probably even go on my "best" pack-in list, somewhere in the top three.

That game was a fixture in my household for a few years at least. Lots of good memories (recent as they may be) of enjoying Wii Sports with friends & family.

[NE146]

Keith Courage had drastically upgraded graphics compared to the NES, and it really showed that off. They were so colorful, bright and big. And that was different yes, it set the system apart.

EXACTLY. People forget this and look at it with retro-glasses (or maybe they were small children at the time). But in the market atmosphere of the TG16 release, you would come from your nes/sms at home and see the Keith Courage display at the store and say "wow". Once you brought it home though it fell out of favor pretty quickly to the Blazing Lazers and Legendary Axes, but it did in fact show the system off quite well. Ditto for Genesis Altered Beast.

My vote for worst still goes to Atari 5200 Super Breakout. We were all like wtf.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Altered Beast may not have been a fun game, but it was a good tech demo. I think that was the point of having it as a pack-in.

[djshok]

I don't know man, Altered Beast was pretty bad, even for a tech demo. There were a lot of late gen NES games that looked and played a hell of a lot better.

[Graham Mitchell]

I don't know man, Altered Beast was pretty bad, even for a tech demo. There were a lot of late gen NES games that looked and played a hell of a lot better.

Well, I think it's biggest attraction was the voice samples. The Genesis came out when I was in 5th grade and I specifically remember my friend who got one coming to school and telling us how amazingly clear the "Wise fwom yo gwave" sample sounded. As such, I think it was a decent tech demo in that regard.

But if they wanted to show off the machine's visual power, Thunder Force II or Space Harrier II would have been a much better choice. But, those are actually good games that people would be willing to pay for, so Sega probably opted to just give away the turd for free.

[NE146]

I don't know man, Altered Beast was pretty bad, even for a tech demo. There were a lot of late gen NES games that looked and played a hell of a lot better.

Played better? Definitely. But I don't know about better visuals though. Altered Beast had BIG and solid graphics/sprites with detailed backgrounds. It LOOKED like the actual arcade game. Altered Beast was definitely next-gen looking.

And that's exactly what I thought as an avid gamer in my 20's (i.e. old ) at the time. I don't think anything on the NES during the Genesis launch could really compare. Well.. maybe Gradius II, but we never had that in the states.

[Sunnyvale]

Altered Beast had BIG and solid graphics/sprites with detailed backgrounds. It LOOKED like the actual arcade game. Altered Beast was definitely next-gen looking.

QFT
For those of us who stood in lines at the arcade waiting to play Altered Beast, and had bought it for the SMS (Ugh!), the Genny port was awesome. I have my Nomad and 2 of those 10 loose game cases by the back door for when I have a cig. Altered Beast is in one of those cases, next to Battletoads and Castlevania. It's a great game.

[goatdan]

EXACTLY. People forget this and look at it with retro-glasses (or maybe they were small children at the time). But in the market atmosphere of the TG16 release, you would come from your nes/sms at home and see the Keith Courage display at the store and say "wow". Once you brought it home though it fell out of favor pretty quickly to the Blazing Lazers and Legendary Axes, but it did in fact show the system off quite well. Ditto for Genesis Altered Beast.

Exactly -- and I guess the question is, is the strategy better to sell you on a game that you'll quickly want to upgrade, or to sell consumers on a game that they don't feel like they ever need to change, like the Wii did with Wii Sports? Ultimately, which is the better pack-in in the long run? That would be an interesting question...

My vote for worst still goes to Atari 5200 Super Breakout. We were all like wtf.

Yeah, that is the one that I keep coming back to in my head too and thinking that it was just all wrong. I mean, it was an all right version of Super Breakout, but that game wasn't graphically advanced when it came out in arcades, so using that as the initial pack-in is just weird. Considering I never even knew the 5200 existed though, I didn't want to jump in and say anything about it.

[BlastProcessing402]

I'm trying to only think of the *original* pack-in titles, as so many titles get packed into consoles throughout their lives for different reasons it would be difficult to look at them all, and I really can't think of any that weren't impressive *for their time*. Looking back now, I'd argue Sewer Shark probably holds up the worst of them all, but at the time it was revolutionary.

If you're only trying to think of the *original* pack-in titles, then Sewer Shark is out. The original pack-ins for SegaCD were Sherlock Holmes, Sol-Feace, and the 4-in-1 classics, along with a couple of CD+G sampler discs.

Played better? Definitely. But I don't know about better visuals though. Altered Beast had BIG and solid graphics/sprites with detailed backgrounds. It LOOKED like the actual arcade game. Altered Beast was definitely next-gen looking.

And that's exactly what I thought as an avid gamer in my 20's (i.e. old ) at the time. I don't think anything on the NES during the Genesis launch could really compare. Well.. maybe Gradius II, but we never had that in the states.

Yeah, when I got my Genesis in '89 I was quite impressed by Altered Beast and how it was JUST LIKE THE ARCADE, even though actually comparing the two there is a bit more difference than is evident at first glance. It might not have quite been an arcade at home, but it made us think it was. The promise of no more watered down SMS or NES ports (even though NES ports, looking back, often changed and added so much they were actually better games overall) was quite a thrill.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

I don't know man, Altered Beast was pretty bad, even for a tech demo. There were a lot of late gen NES games that looked and played a hell of a lot better.

The sizes of the sprites in Altered Beast were a huge step up at the time. The music and voice samples were also way beyond what most home games had to offer. I think it was a wise choice, demographically, too since it had a dark theme and featured "tough men" battling things like a boss that throws severed heads. They probably felt the game would make the system attractive to older teens. The screenshots of Altered Beast being shown in magazines were enough to convince people that this machine was a large step up.

Without Altered Beast, I don't think the system would have sold as well in those early years. Of course it didn't matter anymore once Sonic came around.

[kedawa]

I like the SEGA Genesis Arcade Collection|Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective combo pack better. I didn't care about Sherlock Holmes (I've still never played it), but it did have Columns, Revenge of Shinobi, Golden Axe and Streets of Rage. I'm probably the only SEGA fan who doesn't like Streets of Rage, but the combination of the other games are better than Sol-Feace, IMO.

I wasn't really a fan of the SEGA Genesis Arcade Collection for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it has the most censored version of Revenge of Shinobi. Also, Golden Axe, the one game that was 'enhanced', is limited to one player, has horrible FM and redbook audio, and plays the wrong music in a couple of spots. I can appreciate what they were trying to do, but the end result is underwhelming and simply inferior to the cartridge version of the collection. It really does nothing to demonstrate the capabilities of the Sega CD.

One thing I do like about it, however, is that the disc image can be easily modified with a custom soundtrack for Golden Axe, which I've done a couple of times to add in the PS2 Sega AGES soundtrack and some heavy metal remixes.

[Zing]

I wasn't aware that people thought Altered Beast was bad on the Genesis.

[Gameguy]

Without Altered Beast, I don't think the system would have sold as well in those early years. Of course it didn't matter anymore once Sonic came around.

They replaced Altered Beast with Sonic because system sales weren't as high as they hoped and they wanted to increase them. Only once Sonic was packed in did the Genesis match and exceed(at the time) SNES system sales. It did ok before the SNES was released, but once that came out Altered Beast had to go. Sega in Japan originally didn't want to pack in Sonic because they thought it was too good to include for free, Sega USA convinced them to change their mind.

[Steve W]

Wasn't Legendary Axe a launch title for the TurboGrafx-16? And if so, do you think that it would have been a better candidate to be the pack-in game? I always thought the graphics on Legendary Axe were better than on Keith Courage. They were big and bright and something that could never be achieved on the NES. And I'd say that Legendary Axe is a little more fun and has a bit more 'personality' than Keith Courage, which I always found to be a little dull and uninteresting.