Analogue announced that their brand new high-end Sega Genesis console, the Mega SG, will come bundled with the unreleased game Hardcore.
Only pre-orders for the premium edition of the Mega SG will come with Hardcore. Currently, there is no other way to play the title on Genesis hardware, so this will be the only way to enjoy the game how it was meant to be played.
Hardcore is a side-scrolling shooter with gameplay that resembles Contra. The game was originally developed by DICE, but unfortunately, it never made it to the market due to publisher Psygnosis canceling the project.
It has become somewhat of a legend among retro gaming enthusiasts today. Mainly due to the fact that it was featured in magazines and even made the rounds at E3 before its cancellation. So if you thought you had to wait a long time to play Kingdom Hearts III just remember some people have waited over 20 years to play Hardcore.
For those who are unfamiliar, the company Analogue has become popular in the retro gaming community for making very high-quality retro consoles that can play game cartridges in 1080p. These systems are quite expensive, but they are considered the best on the market for streaming cartridge-based games. Unlike other clone consoles Analogue’s play games off of the cartridge itself rather than emulating it. Several YouTube and Twitch channels use the NT and Super NT systems to stream and capture footage for NES and SNES games.
The Mega SG is the company’s first foray into classic Sega games. Unlike Analogue’s other consoles, the Mega SG will be able to play both Sega Genesis and Master System games. It is a really cool piece of hardware that is likely to become one of the best ways to truly experience Sega’s classic Cartridge library.
It is really cool to see Analogue celebrate their hardware by making Hardcore available for the system. Of course, it will be limited and rather expensive so it won’t be for everyone, but the fact that it exists for this hardware at all is pretty epic.
If you would like to experience Hardcore without shelling out a fortune then you are in luck. Strictly Limited Games announced last year that they would bring Hardcore to both the PS4 and Vita in 2019. Though not too much has been heard of the project since. Hopefully, we will get more news on that soon.
You can pre-order the Mega SG now from Analogue’s web store.
Source: Polygon
