One of the coolest games when I was a child was called “Flashback”. It came out in 1992 when I was 10 and we played it on the Sega Genesis (known as the Mega Drive in Japan and other countries outside the U.S.). It was an action platformer set in a cool cyberpunk world.
Beware of some spoilers ahead!!!!
When the game starts you play a character named Conrad. He wakes up as a prisoner in an alien spaceship. He escapes on a hover bike and crash-lands on a jungle planet. The aliens erased his memory, so he does not know who he is. Before they erased his memory, he recorded a holographic message to himself. In the message he tells himself to find his friend Ian.
In the beginning Conrad has to fight his way through a jungle of mutants in order to get to the city of New Washington. Once he arrives at the city of New Washington, he is able to find Ian. Ian is able to use a machine to restore Conrad’s memory. He learns that he and Ian had discovered an alien conspiracy. Aliens that can change shape were pretending to be humans so they could take over the Earth. Conrad must return to Earth to stop the aliens.
There were several points that made the game really cool. The first was its cyberpunk atmosphere. It felt like you were in a cyberpunk world like in the movies “Blade Runner” or “Total Recall”. The city of New Washington was especially like this with its seedy bars and jetpack-wearing policemen. The second was its cut scenes. For the time, 1992, it had really good cut scenes showing things like Conrad’s escape to his trip to Earth.
The other thing that was fun was the platforming puzzles. In the game you often need to solve puzzles involving sensors, elevators and robots. You have to find out the right combination of jumping, climbing and shooting to get the right solution. The most difficult puzzle was a timed section where you had to use the right combination of jumping to get out of a building before it exploded. If you made one mistake you would not have enough time and you would lose. I had to play that part many times before I got past it.
I haven’t played it, but there was a remake of the game in 2013 with updated graphics and game play. I heard that, although the game was very similar to the original, the game also added some new details to the story. The remake kept the 2D playing style but created new 3D graphics to update the look. Unfortunately, the reviews for the new game said it was not very good and the original was better.
A few years ago, I used an emulator to play the original game and I thought it was still quite
good. I thought it still looked pretty good and was fun to play. If you want to play a cool old game,
I suggest you find a good emulator and buy a copy of Flashback or play it on the original console,
if possible.
Nathaniel
Vocabulary
platformer (noun) – a type of video game where you jump on different platforms or other things
spoiler (noun) – a piece of information that tells you what happens in a television program, book, movie, etc., which may ruin your enjoyment of it if you have not already seen it
conspiracy (noun) – a secret plan with other people to do something bad or illegal
seedy (adjective) – looking dirty or in bad condition and likely to be involved in immoral activities
emulator (noun) – a computer system that is designed to behave in the same way as a different system
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