SirPsycho Genesis/Mega Drive, Sega bally midway, brian colin, ea, electronic arts, game refuge, Game Refuge Inc., general chaos, general chaos ii, general havoc, jeff nauman, midway, multiplayer, real time game, sega genesis, sons of chaos

Now its been overdue for a nice nostalgia trip. Playing Saturn games was nice for a spell. I remember seeing the games on a shelf as a wee lad, and had no idea what the system was but thinking the big cases were the coolest thing I had ever laid eyes on. I did not know anybody with a Saturn though. I did know multiple people with a Sega Genesis though, and one of them had our game today, General Chaos. General Chaos was developed by Game Refuge Inc. and published by Electronic Arts.

General Chaos is a real time action game that can also be said to be an early RTS game, without the base building aspect of the modern genre though. This game focuses on micromanaging a squad of soldiers against another squad of soldiers, its much more tactical and the real time battle system sets it aside from many turn based games of the time like X-Com and is closer to playing like Syndicate. It was developed by Game Refuge Inc. This company’s founders, Brian Colin and Jeff Nauman, were well known as arcade developers for Bally/Midway, developing classics such as Rampage and Arch Rivals, and later followups such as Rampage: World Tour.

The art style is cartoony and the style is definitely going for completely whacked out and crazy. My friend did not have the box and manual for some reason though, so my recent purchase was glorified by flipping through the incredibly cheesy comic book right at the front of the manual. The graphics are quite good, and there is plenty of action on screen at any one time. There are multiple types of soldier, and each one has their own weapon, range, strengths, and weaknesses. How you move in the game and what type of squad you decide to go with can have a massive impact on your success in the field of battle! While the AI is rather stupid there is a two player option, and that’s what I remember playing the most at my friend’s house. We would blow the crap out of each other in this game and have a blast while doing it.

Playing the AI is a rather interesting affair. At first your opponents are quite stupid and just run into your fire, and winning Close Combat sections are quite easy. Its not too difficult to win outright and storm General Havoc’s capital city on this first round. You then have a choice to play again, and this time the AI ramps up the difficulty. It may take a few tries to best this medium difficulty. There is then a third tier of difficulty that’s even harder. This is it though. You can only play three rounds, for a nice gradient from easy, medium and hard.

This game is a cult classic now, and its quite easy to see why. This is a game that occupies a nice niche on the Genesis, it is almost completely unique on the system. The animation is quite smooth in the game, and during battle you are graced with nothing but the sound effects of gunfire and explosions. The music is nice when it shows up, and is some of the higher quality audio for the system. With a multitap you can have up to 4 people playing at the same time, so this game is definitely made for couch multiplayer. The multiplayer is what I remember enjoying the most as a kid, and its just as fun now as it was back then.

A sequel was posted on Kickstarter, but this was a complete failure. General Chaos II: Sons of Chaos was asking for $125,000 to create a high definition, hand drawn sequel of this game. It only managed to get just shy of $16,000 in the month it had.