Way back in October, I wrote about the upcoming FPGA-powered Mega Sg by the always fun manufacturer, Analogue. To be their Sega version of the Nt, Nt Mini and Super Nt (which were based on the NES and SNES respectively) the Mega Sg would boast support for the Genesis and Sega CD as well as a host of other Sega formats of the time using adapters. Still slated for a release of April, it’s been revealed this week that an unreleased game called Hardcore will be included within.
Much like how the Super Nt was released with a directors cut of Super Turrican, Hardcore (here called Ultracore due to licencing woes) will be built into the system. The story goes that the Swedish developer Digital Illusions, who now goes by the more familiar name of DICE, worked on Hardcore throughout 1994. Reportedly, the run’n’gun sci-fi shooter was 99% complete when it was canned by publishers because of the shift of console generations happening at the time. Here’s a trailer of Hardcore in action:
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Sure, it looked great and featured in plenty of early previews at the time in magazines, but I guess this is another example of producers dislodged from reality who would rather ditch a promising and complete game just because they wanted to get the jump on something like the Sony PlayStation. Not that I have anything against supporting emerging technologies, but practices like this just seem so wasteful in retrospect.
Getting back on track. Strictly Limited Games took it upon themselves to resurrect Hardcore from the back-pages of retro gaming history. Fortunately, the source code was able to be rescued from a lone, dead hard drive and using genuine development hardware and input from the original developers, Hardcore is finally going to get its day in the sun.
Strictly Limited Games has plans to release Hardcore both physically and digitally on the PS4 and PS Vita this year, although Analogue claims it’s instead being released for the first time on the Mega Sg – so I’m not sure of the specifics of the partnerships between Analogue and Strictly Limited Games. Heck, I’ve actually seen no mention of Strictly Limited Games at all.
Regardless, pre-orders are still open for the Mega Sg for $189.99.
Growing up while the fifth generation of consoles reigned supreme meant that Brendan missed out on much of the 80’s and early 90’s of gaming the first time around. He either lacked the cognitive ability to play them, as naturally, he was a baby - or he simply didn’t exist yet. Undeterred, Brendan started a blog called Retro Game On in 2011. This followed his exploits as he collected and played everything he could get his hands on no matter what the release date. While RGO is mainly YouTube focused these days concentrating on video reviews and historical features, the itch to do some old fashion writing never went away. More recently, Brendan has been a staff writer for the gaming website, GameCloud, mostly focusing on the indie gaming scene in his locale of Perth, Australia.
