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Today, we have a brand new edition of ?Pure Imagination? for your reading pleasure! When I first started this series, it was obvious that the original intention was to compare the artwork of video game boxes to what you actually got when you plugged the cartridge into the console. In the 1970s, when the Atari 2600 first came out, I had compared the box art to actual paintings, because they were simply THAT good. When we fast forward to the Sega Master System however, the games graphics started to get better, however in most cases, the box art got shot to hell. Rather than choose a single Sega Master System game to review, I decided to give you EIGHT for the price of one, with this edition of the series devoted to the ?Great? sports series.

In the United States, all but one of the games in this series were released in 1987. (Great Soccer was originally released in Japan in 1985, and Great Ice Hockey was released in 1986). This entire series would eventually, and unofficially, become a staple for the Sega brand, as for many years, many excellent sports based games would be released for the various Sega consoles, especially with the Sega Genesis. Over the years, many people would eventually say that the titles of all of these games were unoriginal and misleading, stating that most of these games were far from ?great?. While it is true that some of the games in this series were not
terribly good to play, you have to admit that ?Great Baseball? was a hell of a lot better than ?Home Run? for the original Atari system. But before we go any further, let?s talk about the actual box art for a moment.

Great Baseball shows an outfielders mitt, catching a fly ball. Great Basketball shows the obvious basketball net, with a single hand making the swish for two points. Great Football is showing a group of football players at the zero yard line, with a single hand squeezing the pigskin, barely making a touchdown. Great Golf (the worst of the bunch for accuracy), is showing a golf club hitting a ball, with a chunk of grass being chopped out from the ground, which tends to happen a lot if you are an inexperienced player. Great Ice Hockey shows a near decapitation! A goalie in a mask that not even Jason Voorhees would be proud of, is dodging a puck that has just sped right in front of his face. The cartridge version of Great Soccer shows a clipping of a soccer players bent leg, wearing a green and gold sock that reminds me of 70s shag carpet, kicking a soccer ball that was just brought his way. The card version of Great Soccer shows the typical hand holding the card, with a picture of a more modern looking soccer player, waist down, hitting the ball on his upper thigh. Finally, Great Volleyball features a drawing of a hand that has just hit a volleyball, with lines drawn to indicate the ball is heading upward.

While much of the original box art for the Sega Master System was nothing to write home about, it makes me wonder if the people that designed the box art for this ?Great? series ever watched sports in their life. I am far from being a major sports fan myself, other than hockey, but even I know the problems that these boxes were contaminated with. Baseball shows an apparent catch of a fly ball, however, there is no arm attached to the mitt! It?s almost like you?re playing the game with a team of ghosts. With Basketball, while you see the players arm dunking the ball into the net, the speed lines are inaccurate, showing one line going the opposite direction from underneath, which would be fine if the ball missed the net. Football shows 5 players helmets at the zero yard line, but it looks like an mess of an orgy that I personally have never seen in a football game. (And whose cleat is that randomly shown?) Golf is the most inaccurate to me, again with the speed lines. If you?re going to chip the grass, it wouldn?t be going in the opposite direction of the club swing! Ice Hockey, which is the one sport that I really love watching on TV, shows the puck whizzing right past the goalies face. But shouldn?t the puck be aimed towards the goal and not alongside of it? Soccer was the most accurate, as long as the speed lines are indicating that the player is ABOUT to kick the ball and hasn?t already done so. And with Volleyball, usually when you hit the ball with your fist, you are using both hands cupped together, not just one. Looks sort of painful to me.

When I see a lot of the early Sega Master System titles box art, I have no other choice but to ponder about the old computer graphics program called CorelDraw, which while is still in print and up to the equivalent of version 16, back in the day, could have been a standard. For those that don?t remember that software, it was a basic clip art program that allowed you to incorporate thousands of clip art images in your files and documents. (I remember the packaging for the old version that I owned, which was version 3? The book that showed all of the images on the CD-ROM was about an inch and a half thick.) For this series of Great video games, it seems that the people behind the artwork were a little short on time, and may have been given a demo copy of CorelDraw, and just incorporated 7 pieces of clip art onto the box, used the default font for the title, and it was over in about 10 minutes for the entire series. It just seems that the box art for this series was very amateur, and not given a lot of time. (Of course, this goes for most of the Master System titles.) I mentioned that Soccer was also released on the Sega Card. Those boxes were even more strange, with the clip art being shrunk down on the actual card, and seeing the fingers holding the various cards, as if to say, ?Look how you can hold the card with 2 fingers!? Um, that?s cool.

I cannot help but to compare this series of video games with the box art for the NES equivalents, which were made at around the same time period. All 7 of the sports titles made available in the ?Great? series, had games that were made for the original NES as well, during the ?black box era?. This was the time frame where all of the games that were made by Nintendo featured a slick black box with enhanced shots of the sprites from the actual games. It?s kind of amazing when you think about it. Early on the days of video game box art, elaborate portraits were created to show what the game was supposed to emulate. During the early NES era, because the graphics were considered to be so superior when compared to prior systems, the graphics were actually used to entice people to buy them. While there is always going to be an argument about which 8 bit system had the better graphics abilities (NES versus Master System, that is), Nintendo had no problem showing them off, while Sega tended to use poorly created artwork that didn?t have a lot of creativity towards it, which if Sega had done what Nintendo had done, it could have made for some excellent box art pieces. Just seems to me, that it would have been better if the boxes were just left blank at times.

So now, the ultimate question: What where the games themselves like in this series? Far from ?great?. I have to give Sega kudos on the graphics. In many cases, the graphics for the series WERE actually a lot better than the NES equivalents. The angles that were used for games like Baseball were fantastic, almost as good as the ?Bases Loaded? series for the NES. In some situations, the sprites of the players were nothing short of amazing, sort of how later sports titles for the Nintendo were done. (Great Ice Hockey however, I have to disagree. The graphics for that one were terrible.) The football game also had a very realistic looking field (for the time). However we all know that it takes more than better graphics to make a good game. The controls for most of the games in the series are a little awkward, and in some cases, combinations of buttons are a little tedious. The games also tended to run either a little too slow (for Football and Golf, as if golf couldn?t get any slower), or too fast (Baseball when hitting.) This led to game play that simply wasn?t fun, and flat out annoying. The sounds for the most part are typical of the system, but while Football has possibly the most annoying background music ever on the Master System, you have to give Sega credit for incorporating voice samples in some of these. They were actually well produced and intelligible.

All in all, if it wasn?t for the ?Great? sports series that was made for the Master System, chances are many of the true ?great? series that are made today may never have been made. Madden, the 2K series, and others, may simply never have been given the kind of credit that they have today if it wasn?t started with a series like this. Sega always really liked having a good sports game library in it?s lineup, and always did their best with them as the years went on. But, they had to start somewhere. And while some people would prefer to just forget their roots, here at RGN, we like to embrace them! Have a great week everyone!

Source: http://www.retrogamenetwork.com/2012/07/10/pure-imagination-great-sports-series/

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