When I was a young little stallion (in the early 90s), my parents bought my brother and I a Sega Genesis for Christmas. It was mainly purchased with the intention of bringing it to the Philippines so we would have something to do besides piss and moan about how bored we were (like all spoiled children do).

Basically, our family traveled there for about two months each summer, but my dad was usually busy with research for the university.. and my mama was busy with her obnoxious relatives. Therefore, Sega was really our only form of entertainment during the day.. It was way too hot to go anywhere outside and TV sucked on the island of Palawan.

Before our trips, my dad agreed to buy us any multiplayer games we wanted for the Genesis. He assumed that if we could play at the same time, we wouldn't fight over who was hogging the system- something that happened a lot with Sonic the Hedgehog.

Here are some of the best purchases we/he made:


Toe Jam & Earl



The ultimate co-op experience. We played the hell out of this game. T & E had excellent/hilarious gameplay. You could open presents that would give you special powers like rocket skates! Or you could eat moldy bread! The split-screen kicked ass, too.



It was a fairly long game at the time and we could beat it at least once a day. Since players had the ability to set the levels to random, it was a different experience each time. Even if we got bored beating the game, we could just open various presents and try and kill each other.


Road Rash II



This game allowed me to do things that I always wanted to do in real life. I got to hit my older brother with a chain or bat, while on a motorcycle! The soundtrack was amazing, I still remember lyrics I wrote to the Arizona track.



We had some epic battles in this game, culminating in a plethora of swear words. Games where you can kick people off of motorcycles rule.


General Chaos



At the time, I had never played anything like it. I guess you could call it a simplified RTS game. It was great for co-op and if you got tired of that you could always blow up your brother in the Vs mode.



My favorite character was the dynamite guy. He looked like a pirate and threw barrels of dynamite! He was the most worthless of the bunch with limited range and mobility. Maybe that's why it was so satisfying when you killed people with him.


Streets of Rage



Best cover art.. ever.

This game had three bad ass characters. I had a really big crush on Blaze. It was a pretty straight-forward punch-kick-everything-in-sight title but it was damn entertaining. Furthermore, you could beat up your partner until they died.

Why all of this mattered

My brother and I grew up together with the Sega Genesis. We spent hours with these games. It's very cliche, but we definitely bonded.

Even today, whenever he's in town, we go back to them.

I would go more in-depth with these games, but I do enough writing at work :)

Anyone one else have love for local multiplayer games?




Even while intoxicated, I still fumble around with my trusty Sega Genesis