Eventually, power shifts to the planet's corporations and by the time Rogers is discovered - 500 years later - it is dominated by the Russo-American Mercantile, aka RAM. Sent into space to destroy a new deadly missile system, pilot Buck Rogers succeeds in his mission but not before becoming frozen in space as war rages on Earth. "Since we didn't have the money to get into console games, it was natural for us to license titles like our D&D games and Tony La Russa Baseball, and EA was a natural licensee due to their ownership in SSI."Ĭountdown To Doomsday's story runs back to the end of the 20th Century as nuclear war devastates the human race. SSI president at the time, Joel Billings, takes up the story. Back in 1988, EA had signed a deal with SSI, making the developer an affiliate label and the publisher taking charge of distributing SSI's games while acquiring a 20% share of the company. That box encased the famous Electronic Arts adapted Mega Drive cartridge after the company secured a contract to publish Countdown on the Sega console. A distinctive red box with some garish and heroic art, it couldn't help but stand out." Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday stood out.
"On a shelf full of the usual mid-1990s suspects.
"I can still remember when I first laid my eyes on it," remembered my fellow Eurogamer contributor Jennifer Allen in her loving tribute to Countdown back in 2018. Yet while the original has its fans, it's the Mega Drive conversion, released a year later, that is the most loved. As was common at the time, Countdown presents a first-person exploration view combined with an isometric display for combat.
(better known as SSI), the game was based on TSR's Buck Rogers XXVC table-top role-playing game, itself a blending together of the famous sci-fi character with the Dungeons & Dragons second edition ruleset. Released as part of its Gold Box series by Strategic Simulations Inc. Because we had Buck Rogers: Countdown To Doomsday, a sci-fi RPG the likes of which never again appeared on the Sega console.Ĭountdown To Doomsday began life in 1990 as a PC, Commodore 64 and Amiga game. Then, for a brief period in the early 90s, it didn't matter. True, there were Mega Drive RPGs, but none with quite the epic feel and expanse of their Nintendo peers. But there was one thing we didn't have: the sprawling RPGs of the Nintendo console, such as The Secret Of Mana, Final Fantasy and The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past. After all, we had amazing platform games. Mega Drive owners didn't often glance enviously at their Super Nintendo friends.
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