Gaming's last stands

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What happens when games machines die

The last stand of: Mega Drive/Genesis
Last official UK release: FIFA 98: Road to the World Cup (1997)
Last official US release: Frogger (1998)

There seems to be a theme here - FIFA appearing last on every major platform. It does what it does, only here in isometric 2D. Meh. As for Frogger... well, what can we say? We remember playing that on the Commodore VIC-20 (an old home computer with a grand total of 5kb of RAM) so we kinda have fond memories of the little fella... but his modern incarnations have been somewhat forgettable. Some people still rate him though, so we won't run him over with our car just yet. Worth noting, however, that he was given his Genesis relaunch in 1998 - that's ten years since the console first launched in Japan. That's a surprisingly long lifespan for a console, rivalling even PSone's record. Who'd have thought it?

Final hurrah: Toy Story
If ever a console could be used as an example of how the best games are often made at the end of its life, it's Mega Drive. Comparing an early title like Altered Beast to Toy Story, you would never believe they were running on the same machine. Using similar animation quality to Donkey Kong Country and 3D background effects, the game looked superb, using the same character models (albeit digitised) as the film.

It was very difficult to play, however, and gameplay often descended into trial and error. The music is annoying too. Not quite a ringing endorsement, we'll admit, but in terms of showing Mega Drive was still a viable platform in the face of the 32-bit era, Toy Story was indeed a last hurrah. If only the 16-bit era could have looked this good from the start...

Above: And to think pseudo-3D floor effects like that used to make us excited. We were so sad

Final hurrah: Toy Story
If ever a console could be used as an example of how the best games are often made at the end of its life, it's Mega Drive. Comparing an early title like Altered Beast to Toy Story, you would never believe they were running on the same machine. Using similar animation quality to Donkey Kong Country and 3D background effects, the game looked superb, using the same character models (albeit digitised) as the film.

It was very difficult to play, however, and gameplay often descended into trial and error. The music is annoying too. Not quite a ringing endorsement, we'll admit, but in terms of showing Mega Drive was still a viable platform in the face of the 32-bit era, Toy Story was indeed a last hurrah. If only the 16-bit era could have looked this good from the start...

Justin Towell
Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.