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What Nintendon't, is what Xbox One Genesisn't

Isn't it funny that the Genesis colleciton isn't on Nintendo Switch? (Maybe they got a surprise, that for $20 a year, in addition to NES, and other classics as a free rental with online play, and add Genesis games to their collection. They had them during the Wii era, so maybe we'll see Genesis classics on Switch.)

So If I want to play more games online of the Genesis, to last longer than the 360 versions, I'd get it for the One. So I looked at the list, and saw Columns III. A game like Columns, but you've got more diabolical ways to ruin your opponent, and with a 5 player mode back in the day with a Team Player for the Genesis, you can play 5 players on Genesis. We never had many Genesis local parties, so I didn't experience this competitive game online. So it would be cool to experience it now.

Now for something they don't tell you. Apparently this is a neutered copy of Columns III, which only has a maximum number of 2 players. The Xbox box says maximum 2 players. They've bothered programming in 6 button controllers, and the Xbox One should be able to natively support 4 people locally AT LEAST. I've heard some Xbox One games can support 8 locally. And 5 Players online is not unheard of, even in the Dreamcast days, where Outtrigger was 6 players via DIAL UP. you don't even need a Team Player OR local friends to get a 5 player game going. But still, It's what Genesisn't

So I put in the disc, and try to set the buttons. Apparently the font is so small on my 24 inch Sony Playstaiton 3D screen, that it's hard to tell what button represents what function. And there are only 2 settings. Setting 0 and setting 1. I couldn't tell what logic layout 0 was, but layout 1, tired to use a fight stick lineup. Which is essential because the Genesis had buttons 3-in-a-row for the basic games, and 2 rows of 3 for the games that use the 6 button controller. So I thought I could use a fight stick and have 3 buttons in a row.

Apparently, a lot of Xbox One joysticks don't have their buttons standardized. They want you to use the 2 bumpers for C and Z, but fight sticks have all sorts of crazy arrangements for the 8 buttons. Using the example of Xbox 360 fight sticks, The Virtua Fighter 5 360 stick had a non-standard arangement, which was different from the Street Fighter one, which was different from the Tekken one, which was different from the WWE one... . You think with all these crazy arrangements of fight sticks, you'd have the ability to program the joysticks to your own liking. Also there are some system operations that require a right stick, or a left stick press-in. In other words, not friendly for ANY fight stick, which unless you get a pad with 2 rows of 3 buttons like the Sega Genesis controller, is the only way to play in my humble opinion.

Kind of like Netrogames, but without the low ping.

Apparently, Sega decided to take a bare basics approach in making their games online. Aside for the other problems, when you go challenge/partner with someone, the interface is unique. There's a list of 20-30 possible 2 players games, you check the ones you want to play and x the ones you don't. So in order to play Columns III, which I was in the mood for trying, I had to manually uncheck every other 2 player game box. Luckily a challenge came to me after a couple levels of Altered Beast, so what started out as a negative turned out to be a positive, which is kind of like my idea of Game Pager on my Netrogames website, in the second section, under gamer pager, except it's only local to the Xbox One version of Sega Genesis, and ONLY with the people online at the time on that game.

This next part I'm going to use a little empathy and, for part of the review, walk a mile of the OTHER gamer's shoes in a 56OK game session.

The internet was decent like it was trying to play the game with limited interruptions, and it was okay for a while like playing 30 seconds, and then suddenly it stopped for like 3 seconds to catch everyone up. From what I know, If was a 3-button game that only used, left, right, down and B to rotate. Up wasn't used, and A and C I believe were only used in selecting which opponent you wanted to screw over when you raised one player's platform, the A and C buttons let you cycle to WHICH player you wanted to screw.

Now let's look at it from the bandwidth endowed gamers. (When you're at 1.5 Meg in, 400 k out, everyone else looks bandwidth endowed) I decided to play a best 3 out of 5 against a random. He got the first special jewel before I did and, probably not knowing what it was, just dropped it. The down arrow is on the bottom, and when you do that, you lower any extra platforms on your side by so many levels. He earned the first gem, and it was a waste of a move. What he should have done was either put the up arrow on the bottom and raise me up, or put the square on the bottom which is a wild jewel which eliminates all jewels of one color. I did not make the same mistake, and push him up a level or 2 whihc caused him to top out and give me the win.

There was like about once-a-minute 3 second pauses, where the music stopped and you couldn't nove. If he saw this after he lost, be probably thought I was cheating. And unfortunately, there was no voice chat built into the game, so I couldn't tell him it was my poor internet's fault. Either that or he heard me perfectly fine and didn't have a mic, so when I won the second game, he bailed. So I got no credit for the win.

Unfortunately, there was no way to tell him that it's my fault the pauses are happening. There was not green to red data speedometer. And I'm Open Nat type, just poor speed. he was probably thinking the game was broken. So if you hear this, opponent on Columns III, I'm in the gaming desert. I'm the one usually afraid I'm put at an unfair disadvantage, because everything is delayed for me. If Columns III, a game that doesn't need pinpoint accuracy in timing, is messed up, imagine what other games where timing is more key are ruined worse. Plus Partnership games, how do you sync things? My network would conk out just before a key jump/shot, stop and then pick up without warning.

Seeing the problems that came up, and no way to give a friendly warning to a stranger makes me want to rate this game a 56KO. But I got actual evidence froma good friend of what happens. It's much worse. Read on.

As an aside, At first I was looking forward to Eternal Champions Online. But with the Genesis network code messed up, maybe it's a GOOD thing that Eternal Champions is not online. Maybe Sega did the responsible thing and battle tested the network, and found out it was so reactionary, that it required a CRT TV to play fairly, and just as importantly, more bandwidth dependent that the other games. The smart move was to say, Columns III doesn't need pinpoint timing, so it would be less effected by poor networks. If Eternal Champions wasn't on there because of network issues, I say totally reprogram the game and make a special Eternal Champions Trilogy Online with a reprogrammed version of the Sega Genesis version, the Sega CD version with double the characters, (with the option of the Xavier change in either #1 mode or #2 model, which in #2, due to a lack of speed loading on the Sega CD, gimped him of his body swapping just an opponent to a random character, and replaced it with the 2 bodies switching. You know if you have to face Xavier, you have to practice a little fighting as Xavier, instead of preparing for fighting as ANYONE and him not being gimped by becoming you.) and the one they were originally going to release for the Saturn, but update the graphics on #3 for Xbox One / PS4 / Switch.

UPDATE: The OTHER victim of Low Bandwidth

If you thought I didn't like the performance of my bad internet, now I've got video evidence of the other side of the equation. I was challenging Jamal "Zophar321" Nickens because he said we can play online on the Genesis. I told him be prepared for bad ping. Boy I was not kidding. I did the responsible thing and not consume any extra bandwidth when I'm stretching as it is. So I did not see the video live for 2 reasons. The other was because I was concentrating on the main screen to play Columns 3.

Jamal had a legitimate reason to complain. If you want to see the effects of bad bandwidth, not from the perspective of the guy WITH the slow net, but the OTHER guy's, visit this twitch clip and you'll see why there's at least 2 victims of bad bandwidth. One is the person with bad bandwidth, the other is the opponent/partner they play the game with.

DocHolliday360 says "Get better internet, you cheap bastard!" Well I don't know if docHilliday360 knows, but:
1. There's no cable on our street.
2. Satellite has too high of a ping time to play games.
3. Cellular, despite being good if you took advantage of it early during the 3G days, which we did and were happy, is now designed so you have either data limits, or a carrier-imposed speed drop to 2.5x dial up speeds (125k vs 1.5 M of DSL) if you decide to wifi your data to devices like an Xbox 360 or One. And with the treadmill going faster and faster and at steeper inclines, we couldn't stay at 500 k in, 200 k out and be happy, nor could we up our cellular net speed without the new resrictions.
4. As for DSL, Frontier was embarrassed to offer such low DSL speeds, until we told them our situation, of 500 kb in 200 kb out of 3G internet, and we can't upgrade to 4G without these draconian data limits, and of satellite ping times. They admitted they were a poor choice in my neighborhood due to the length of phone line to reach us. But when they saw they were better than all other options, they shut up and gladly took our money, even though they felt sorry.

A company who would like to challenge Specturm Cable in Medina County, Fairlawn Gig said they would like to give us anywhere from 100 Meg to 1 Gig. I told them if you can do that while blanketing the whole Medina County area, that would be good. But if it's a choice of getting existing good areas those speeds and gradually adding to more remote places, or blanketing the whole county with 25 Mb/s in internet, and then upping it as you work on the network, I'd chose the latter. There are way too many people who live in a legal broadband "Nullopoly", including me (I would say "monopoly", but that would imply that there was exactly ONE carrier of 25+ MB/s internet, with low ping times and unlimited quantity available. We literally have ZERO federally defined broadband options by today's definition. Even by 2012 standards, we have Zero Options, and our threshold is at the 2012 level.) for that market to be ignored. Fairlawn Gig should prioritize getting basic broadband to dead zones as opposed to outmuscling Spectrum in areas where good internet already exists. I don't want Farilawn Gig concentrating on winning internet drag races, when there are areas with horse-and-buggy internet who want to access the information superhighway, just to basically commute, not to drag race.

UPDATE: therer was a new downlaod on the Sega Genesis collection. Did they improve the net code? If Zophar321 will accompany me, I'll test it, and he can broadcast it.

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