The Worst Sounding Sega Genesis Games! - Game Sack

Episode 261 - The sound quality of the Genesis / Mega Drive has always been up for debate. Some love it, others hate it. But one thing that can't be argued is that there are some games that sound very, very bad. Do these games hurt the console's reputation? You bet they do. Let's listen!

#segagenesis #genesis #megadrive

[GameSack]

What Genesis / Mega Drive games do you think sound the worst? How about the best?

[NipplesTheEnchilada]

Honestly, I like Sonic Spinball's music for the most part, though that Options Screen music can burn in hell for all I care.

[slib]

having flashbacks to an older Sack episode where Dave plays Marble Madness and his ears literally bleed

[DJ_InYourFace]

"Genesis games that sound like AAAASSSS"

[mspeter]

GEMS wasn't THAT bad when you think about it.
When used correctly the results could be really nice, Comix Zone as you said is a nice exemple of how a clever dude could use GEMS to its maximum potential, the Earthworm Jim games use it and sounded great. Toy Story used it too and it sounded amazing (though that title screen music used some amazing trickery to play a MOD file).

[brigurugi]

Okay... headphones on, new Game Sack notification and now I'm deaf.

[VencabotArchive]

One of the funniest post-credits skits so far. Had me laughing non-stop ever since, "But I'm a misogynist!"

[tedmoore]

"Who needs two ears anyways"
Vincent Van Gogh

[MegaDriveProfile]

Unfortunately, its true. Games like this create a huge stigma behind the genesis having a crappy sound chip. As a fan its quite annoying because it couldn't be further from the truth. I think any audio chip has the potential to sound awful really and although this is cliche, its the man behind it that really counts. GEMS can actually be good like you said with Comix Zone. I suggest people check out the Rooftop track from Demolition Man, it uses GEMS and its pure awesomeness. Being a genesis fan can get tough!

[smugshrug]

i love the Genesis sound chip. whether it sounds good or bad is entirely dependent on the skill of the person utilizing it. Just like any other sound chip.

[Dreddtube]

The cheek percussion part was 100% accurate. Seriously, I could not distinguish the music from it After the first time.

[adamgr]

I loved that transition of fuzzy '90s Batman footage to razor sharp pixels.

Thanks for all the attention to detail Joe, it doesn't go unnoticed.

[Vintersemestre]

Hey Mr. Game Sack, I just wanted to let you know that I love this channel and one of my absolute FAVORITE things about it is that you put subtitles. That is just awesome and seemingly very uncommon. Thanks so much!

[hyazza]

Guile: hey Ryu
Ryu: yes ?
Guile: Sonic boom 🥂

[Slybo]

This needs a counterpart episode. "Games that managed to make the awful Genesis audio sound good."
That tinny GEMS audio is like a needle to the eardrum.

[animalmother]

Still love x-men on sega lol. Even with its crazy stage music. Especially the drums in the 1st stage or the mouth drum you visually demonstrated. ROFLMAO!

[josephdelacruz]

Thanks for this episode. Honestly, as an audio engineer myself, I really enjoy the parts of the episodes where you talk about nerdy audio stuff, and to have this whole episode like that was a treat! This has become one of my repeat Game Sack episodes along with Let's Make a YouTube Show and the Video Game Memories ones. Thanks, Joe!

[Vlaphor]

"Aww, he didn't mention Chakan in the good Genesis music section. He must've just forgotten"

Sees it in the bad music section.

"Grrrr"

[Pensive_Scarlet]

I wonder how much effort it would ultimately take to turn Osomatsu-kun into a Bart Simpson game. It would give me an excuse to compose an entirely new and properly decent soundtrack, but would enough people appreciate the humor of the idea?

[danmakuman]

FM synthesis was, along with PSG, some of the most important ways to produce audio for Arcade machines and PCs back then, specially in Japan. Basically every developer used those Yamaha sound chips to create sound, the Genesis uses an FM chip (along with a PSG one) because Sega knew that was the best way to go and everybody used it in their country (And even 1 game for the NES/Famicom used an FM chip called "Lagrange Point"), even themselves. From games like TMNT, Street Fighter 2, Snow Bros. etc all those games use the same family of sound chips as the Genesis (with some differences). It depends of the programmer or/and the musician to create great music and sound, but you need to understand that it is a synthesizer, creates synthetic sounds, not realistic ones (sometimes it does tho) so you can't expect stuff it can't produce, just like the NES, it barely sound like an instrument but still pretty cool in the right hands,