Page 43 - OSG Presents Video Game Trader Magazine #14

competition at the time being
the TurboGrafx-16 (it would
take Nintendo two more years Altered Beast—Arcade Ver-
to launch their 16-Bit console,
the Super Nintendo). What it
did mean, however, was that
Altered Beast had to be rewrit-
ten in order to take full advan-
Despite the fact that Sega dominated arcades across Japan and America through- tage of the Genesis platform.
out the 1980s, the company spent the majority of that same decade trailing misera- The end result, especially at
bly in home console wars. Sega's arcade releases read like a Who's Who list of the time of its release, was a
arcade classics (Frogger, Zaxxon, Congo Bongo, Hang-On, Choplifter, Wonder Boy, very impressive game.
Out Run, Shinobi, and After Burner, just to name a few), but their 8-Bit Sega Master
System was never able to gain anywhere near the popularity of the competing Nin- There are differences between the arcade and home versions, to be sure. Graphics
tendo Entertainment System. Toward the end of the decade, Sega borrowed hard- on the arcade version are better, with each character appearing larger, containing
ware from its successful System-16 arcade system and released the 16-Bit Mega more detail, and possessing more frames of animation which resulted in smoother
Drive, which hit Japanese shelves in October of 1988. For its American debut, the action. The System-16 arcade board was also capable of producing better sound
console was rebranded the Sega Genesis, and arrived in stores on August 14, than the Genesis, giving the arcade version richer music, better sound effects and
1989. With a strong desire to both gain marketplace shares and show off the sys- clearer digitized speech.
tem's superior 16-Bit hardware, Sega decided to port Altered Beast (one of its most That being said, Sega did an overall fabulous job on the home version of the game.
popular arcade titles at that time) to the new system and include it as the pack-in Using current methods of emulation you can easily flip back and forth between both
launch title. the Genesis and arcade versions of the game and spot major differences. However,
back in the late 1980s when the only way to compare the two would have involved
In the arcade version of Altered Beast, one or two players must fight their way
through multiple waves of creepy dead guys to rescue Athena, the daughter of driving, biking or walking to the nearest arcade, I suspect the nuances between the
Zeus. The real fun in this side-scroller begins when players destroy one of the magi- two versions would have been more difficult to spot. The Genesis version has quite
cal two-headed wolves that dispense magical blue "power-up" orbs. Collecting one a going for it: it includes all five levels from the arcade, contains music, sound ef-
or two orbs makes your character look like bodybuilding muscle men Hans and fects, and digitized speech, has all the same enemies, and supports multiple play-
Frans, while the third transforms your character into a mythical beast. Depending on ers. Additionally, the Genesis version includes parallax scrolling (multiple layers
the level, you'll end up as a dragon, tiger or bear (oh my!), and gain super smashing moving at different speeds to give the illusion of depth), something the original is
powers as you literally unleash your inner beast. lacking.
There is one other way in
Along with Golden Axe, Alien Syndrome and Shinobi, Altered Beast dazzled arcade
visitors with detailed graphics and superb sound, thanks to Sega's System-16 which the home version is
board. Powered by Motorola's 68000 chip and using a Z80 for sound, the System- Altered Beast—Genesis Version far superior to the arcade
16 contained cutting edge hardware. Porting such an advanced game to a home version. As a method of
console could have been a dangerous move, as a weak conversion could have preventing would-be
spelled disaster for Sega's Genesis launch. Al- bootleggers from pirating,
though both the Genesis and the System-16 removing or disassem-
shared similar hardware, the Genesis was defi- bling code stored within
nitely the weaker of the two. For example, even their arcade games, Sega
though both systems shared Motorola's 68000 16 developed an encryption
-Bit processor, the System-16 board ran at 10 system which was backed
MHz while the Genesis ran at a much slower 7.67 by a battery. Removing
MHz; and while the Genesis had a 512-color the battery or main chips
palette and could display up to 80 sprites at a from the board would
time, the System-16 could handle 128 simultane- cause the encryption/decryption system to fail, thus protecting the game's code.
ous sprites and had 4,096 colors to choose from. What Sega did not consider was that the batteries used have a finite life span.
That's not to say that the Genesis wasn't techni- These batteries, now lovingly referred to as "suicide batteries", power the decryption
cally advanced; it was, especially with its only real keys to the game. When (not if) the battery fails, the board is rendered useless. To
make matters worse, the batteries are soldered directly on to the game's printed
circuit board (PCB), making them difficult to replace. The only way to fix a dead
PCB is to replace the old encrypted chips with new decrypted EPROMs. The next
time someone mentions to you how superior the arcade version of Altered Beast
was to the Genesis release, remind them that millions of Altered Beast Genesis
cartridges are still working and can be picked up for pennies in almost any thrift
store.
Altered Beast was everything Sega needed in a Genesis launch title. The game's
graphics and sound blew away any and all 8-Bit competitors and announced, with a
roar, Sega's 16-Bit arrival. The Genesis version of Altered Beast continues to live on
even today. It appeared in the Sega Smash Pack (Windows/Dreamcast), on the
Sega Genesis Collection for the PS2 (which also contains the original arcade ver-
sion), and most recently as a download for the Wii's Virtual Console. "Rise from
your grave," indeed.

www.VideoGameTrader.com • Winter 2009/2010 • Issue #14 • Video Game Trader Magazine • 43