A nation's pride: Team Canada

A long time ago, football was not a sport about money, but about 22-players kicking around a ball for the love and passion of the game. The FIFA series had debuted on the Mega Drive in 1994 with International Soccer before starting the long tradition of annual releases named after their respective years. FIFA '97 was the fourth title in the series and whilst it was an amazing game on other consoles, the Mega Drive port was struggling to keep up with technological advancement. Things were mixed up this year, as opposed to a conventional 11 versus 11 2-player football match, we had a 4-player team game in the awesome indoor mode, which was sadly removed for future incarnations of the FIFA series.

Before a multi-tap had been located, Al and Jack had already played half a 2-player game… in the spirit of mercy, they were paired together and awarded a bye to next round. Ben and Jay appeared to be a formidable pairing on paper, however, they were dispatched by Gareth and Matt. Al and Jack were the most successful team and the teammates were duly forced to play each other in the final, which Jack won 1-0. Special mention goes to Ross and Daniel who opted to brave this round as Canada. What they lacked in ability and skill, they made up for in tenacity, patriotism and heroism. The highlight of the round was a Canadian flying header that broke the deadlock against their Ghanese opponents and speculation that the no.10 goal scorer would soon be receiving the Canadian Presidency as an honour! We were disappointed that nobody thought to give their team a name.

The sequel to the controversial fighting game that featured pixelated blood splatters and fatality moves, is only moderately less bad than the original and still better than the numerous Sub Zero/Scorpion clones that emerged in the sequel. Complaints were rightly made that those with 6-button controllers had an advantage over those with 3-button controllers. However, the gory, gritty and sluggish controls mean that Mortal Kombat is unlikely to return to the tournaments in any event.

The only game worth mentioning was the final in which Jay Townsend and João Pires made this turgid, cumbersome title appear halfway decent, with some fine gameplay, decent array of moves and forethought to combos. Everybody else just button mashed away and the fortunate were eliminated early.

Next up was time to speed and bleed with Road Rash 3, the full throttle action of this violent motorbike racer was made even more chaotic by the race being held in Level 2 with the tough to tame wild thing bike. Players were given the option of selecting the track they raced on; the patriotic English selected the UK, the patriotic Germans opted for Germany, the patriotic Portuguese chose Brazil (due to a language thing) and the sensible decided to race on Italy, which was the shortest course! Road Rash 3 was quite surprising in how much fun it was.

Daniel was up first and (obviously) opted to race the Australian course and did himself proud by crashing firstly a kangaroo and then (seemingly) a camel, leading to a very in-depth discussion as to whether Australia possessed a camel population. Matt, having difficulty controlling the Wild Thing, proceeded to wreck his bike and attempt to run to the end of the course on foot, only to be busted en route. Jono Graham completed the course and crashed after the finish line, whilst Atheer, Jack, Gareth and Al, decided crashing was more important than racing and wrecked their respective bikes. The four players who claimed the points all managed to achieve times of under 3-minutes.

In the constant quest to keep the tournament games fresh and rotating, there is an occasional mis-step made. For 2018, this was Ms Pac-Man and, whilst it was not remotely on the level of the calamity that was Ball Jacks and Golden Axe 2 in 2016, WWF Royal Rumble in 2017, Wayne Gretzky Hockey in 2007 or 3D Ballz in 2006, this was not a popular choice.

In what was a fine balance between dot eating, ghost eating and eating any random fruit that happened to be bouncing across the screen; Paul Holbrook was complimented for his impressive display in noticing up the points, however, he lost his lives through some “schoolboy errors”. The same was true of Daniel Smith with the recipient of all these errors being Sebastian Gerstl who demonstrated more competence than his opponents and found himself in the final where he lost to Jay Townsend. Special mention goes to Ross who also gave a good demonstration of his Pac Man abilities, although, by this point, the spectators were far more interested in Mega Bomberman and Eternal Champions!

BOOM! The group death-matches of Mega Bomberman are always a highlight of any tournament and they have been present for the past 3-consecutivie events. Instead of previous years where there have been 3-player rounds, 2018 saw some epic 4-player explosion orgies.

The usual fun, fast and frantic chaos occurred. The final four of Ben, Jay, Ross and Sebastian played against the pressure of the NVA closing for the evening and the maximum number of wins required was reduced from 3 to 2. It was Ben who claimed the victory and, with no time left and two players tied for second, Jay and Ross were awarded 1½-points each.

Eternal Champions in action!

Eternal Champions is arguably the best of the bad fighters (i.e. it is not Street Fighter 2) and plays in a similar manner with a slightly more cartoony edge. There is a decent array of moves on this fighter, however, these can sometimes be cumbersome to pull off (especially if your opponent is button mashing you in close combat). This head-to-head brawl was a welcome, if not popular, addition to the 2018 game line-up and was a nice way to round off the event.

Unlike Super Street Fighter 2, the vast majority of players have no idea who half of the Eternal Champions fighters are, let alone whether or not they are any good as them. Honourable mention goes to everybody who selected Triton and performed the useless liquid form move. The “Slash Round” between Ben and Sebastian, which mainly featured repeated bone breaker moves. This fighting game saw another João and Jay final and, like Mortal Kombat II, the result was the same.

The heroes who enjoyed retrogaming awesome

Conclusion:
A rushed end to the 2018 Mega Drive Championship did nothing to damage the passion of the overall event. Jay Townsend once again defended his title, Richard Neumann won the Tournament Knockout which returned with great success for the first time in five-years. Sebastian Gerstl was awarded the coveted Mr Smith Merit award and marrow for his 34-second sprint through the Emerald Hill 1. And whilst the games themselves provided some eclectic twists and turns throughout the day, the absence of some more mainstream titles like Street Fighter and Micro Machines, were clearly felt.

From an organisational perspective, there have been three Mega Drive Championships at the NVA in Nottingham and the tournaments have seen an amazing evolution from the muted league competitions they once were into the passionate and nostalgic celebration of the finest 16-bit gaming the Mega Drive has to offer. For 2019, those looking to pay homage to the Mega Drive can look forward to a new venue, an evolution in the competition format, another dose of awesome video game action, Jay Townsend winning the tournament again and (probably) a race on Outrun 2019.

Final Standings
			Pld		1st		2nd		3rd/4th		Pts		Overall Rank
1st	Jay Townsend		9		4		0½		2½		19½		3rd (+3)
2nd	Ben Sametschek		9		2		0		1		9		25th
3rd	Daniel Smith		9		1		1		2		8		8th (+1)
4th	Sebastian Gerstl		9		0		2		3		7		18th
5th	Ross Willett		9		0		1½		3½		6½		22nd (+8)
6th	Richard Neumann		9		1		0		2		6		11th
6th	João Pires		9		2		0		2		6		28th (+1)
8th	Jack Gosling		9		1		0		1		5		75th
9th	Alex Sinclair		9		0		1		0		2		81st
9th	Jono Graham		9		0		1		0		2		32nd (-9)
11th	Derek Wheatley		6		0		0		1		1		40th (-3)
	No Score:		Atheer Shakib, Justin Jakubiak, Gareth Smith, Matthew Hooton and Paul Holbrook