Renting (bad) Sega Genesis games back, back in the day
It’s late Friday night. Sometime in the early 90s. You’re at the local video store looking for a game to rent for the weekend. It’s slim pickings. Slaughter Sport? Death Duel? Last Battle? You grit your teeth, make your selection, and hope for the best…
The bad weekend rental
The phrase “weekend rental” doesn’t get trotted out much these days. Not in video game circles.
It’s a throwback to a bygone era. A time when physical media ruled and your local Blockbuster was a cheap and convenient source of entertainment. A place where you could rent games for a couple of bucks and see if they warranted a purchase.
Magazines would throw the phrase into their reviews as a sort of backhanded compliment. It meant the game was kind of okay, but probably a bit too short and too easy to justify the $50 price tag. It was an uncommitted shrug from a reviewer with better things to do.
While that’s the origin story, it’s not the WHOLE story. And in my mind the term represents something else.
“Weekend rental” isn’t just a commercial transaction. It’s a whole sub-genre of early, b-grade games from the 16bit era. Let me explain.
Sega Genesis game prices
People complain about the price of video games in the modern era, but they were even worse back in the day. New titles might go for $50 USD / £40 Pounds / $70 AUD. Which in today’s money is about $110 / £85 / $160.
The problem was amplified by how short some of these games were. With arcade ports still a thing, you might be able to zip through certain titles in an hour or two. And while the games might be entertaining enough, it wasn’t a great investment if you only got to buy a few games a year.
Video game magazines were mindful of this, and would penalise games that they felt didn’t provide value for money. “A good weekend rental,” but not something you want to rush out and buy.
We’re not here to talk about those games. Those games were good but short / easy.
I want to highlight the janky, rushed, and forgettable b-games that appeared alongside the Sega Genesis in its early years. Games that you’d only see on video store rental shelves late on a Friday night. Games that didn’t get reviewed in magazines. Games that were mostly ignored. Games that you rented as a kid because you liked the cover art and were dumb.
A crushing wave of nostalgia
RazerSoft are the kings of the bad weekend rental. I know this because I rented several of their games as a kid.
Death Duel, Technocop and Slaughter Sport are the sort of shock-and-gore titles that a 12-year-old kid might appreciate if there was nothing else going. But they’re not “good” games.
RazorSoft would go bust in 1994. But at least they published several bad to mediocre games. The early days of the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive are littered with the corpses of publishers who put out one of two questionable games and disappeared without a trace.
Nothing showcases this particular sub-genre of b-game like the Sega Genesis Seal of Quality ad that ran in 1990.
It features all the heavy hitters of the genre. Like, ah, Treco, Sages Creation, Kyugo Trading and NuVision. Also, the aforementioned RazorSoft.
The land before time
While it’s easy to dunk on these games from the comfort of 2024, that’s not what we’re here for.
These early titles capture a moment in time. The awkward transition from 8bit to 16bit. A liminal state where the old world was crumbling while the new was still being built. Let’s call it New Jank City. Or not…
It’s a world before Sonic. Before Electronic Arts sports titles. Before Capcom and Konami jumped on board the Sega express.
It’s the earliest days of the 16bit console wars. When Sega was desperate for third party support and willing to place that Genesis Seal of Quality on anything with a pulse.
It’s the dawn of the new. And it wasn’t always pretty. But if you scoured those blockbuster game rental shelves hard enough you might just find a classic or two.
