Sega made one of the finest consoles known to man when they created the Sega Genesis. They also inadvertently created the sole reason for my parents thinking I was some sort of deranged sociopath. I’m not denying that my obsessions with fire and strategic dismemberment of my action figures didn’t help to reinforce those concerns, but this isn’t an article about me. Among the sources of growing concern that I was slowly becoming a disconnected robot that would only respond with
promises of Fruity Pebbles and game cartridges were the Mutant League games. Mutant League Football, to be exact. While I liked Mutant League Hockey well enough, Mutant League Football became a legitimate obsession in my house.
As a kid I never really liked playing sports games, instead
preferring to actually go out and play sports with my friends. Side effects of actually playing sports included having a general distaste for the way that most sports games played out; if not also resulting in me trying to implement Genesis era Madden plays into our neighborhood games of two-hand touch. All of this changed when I ventured into the local video game store with my mom. I had amassed enough wealth trading carts with friends to have the privilege of being taken to the cleaners by the store’s proprietor and getting some used game credit. Just enough credit to buy two shiny used Genesis carts. With my young mind already packed to the brim with a cynicism for recycled ideas in video games (something that never truly went away actually…) I let out a little squeak of glee when I saw the box art for the Mutant League games. They were on the shelf side-by-side, and beckoned me like some kind of beacon. I was mesmerized, and proudly wrapped my grubby little hands around the boxes and took them to the counter. My mom was aghast almost immediately. Skeletons, and monsters playing sports drew the line apparently. I assured her I wasn’t going to pledge my soul to Satan on account of the game, and spent a long and anxious car ride home.
Read the rest of this article on page 20 by clicking here
Check out this full issue of a classic video game magazine at OldSchoolGamer.Com.
Be sure to sign up to get Old School Gamer Magazine Digitally for free by clicking here!
