Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Five for Virtual Console

All SEGA, see? Gah!

Another week, another three for the Virtual Console... Wait, no, what? There's five! All Mega Drive?

True, there they are, with Sonic The Hedgehog 3 out in front. This one was bigger and faster than the rest, and introduced lots of bits and pieces like musical snippets and cut-scenes that we now associate with the series.

Next up is the fantastic but fiendishly difficult Ghouls 'n' Ghosts. It's a 2D platform game which pops you in the metallic boots of King Arthur, who just so happens to be on a quest to rescue the princess from a horde of nasty zombie enemies. It's had loads of ports over time, including the most recent version on PSP, which reviewed pretty well.

But perhaps you want to liberate a city from a plague of crime, because we all know it never pays. If you do, then you'll want ESWAT: City Under Siege. Just hop into your futuristic police costume and get to it, upgrading your weapons and eventually turning into a cyborg as you go.

Or how about a dungeon crawling role-playing game. It just so happens that Shining in the Darkness fits that bill. Here you'll have to save the world from an evil fellow by trawling the dank and dark caves of the world and battling fantasy creatures. And did you know that Shining was also one of the very first games to use 3D turn-based battles? No, nor did we. Thank you Wikipedia.

Or, if none of that takes your fancy, then maybe something with a little more strategy is your thing. Oh look, there's Crack Down, just the thing - and not related in any way to the excellent 360 game you might have seen in shops. Your charge is to save the world from evil cyborgs by infiltrating and destroying their facilities by carefully placing bombs, as well as blasting cannons and shooting firearms to help you wipe the pseudo-robots from the Earth.

All of these former Mega Drive classics will cost you 800 points each (GBP 5.60 / EUR 8) in the Wii Store.