The Blog of triverse

There are few games that were exclusive to computers. Even Doom and Quake eventually received official ports to home consoles. The same cannot be said for Rick Dangerous though, this classic Core Designs action adventure has never had an official home console port. That is not stopping fans though and you can grab it right now for your Sega Genesis, or favorite emulator if you do not have a flash cart available.

Obscure to Some, Amazing Game to Others

For many, Rick Dangerous is an anomaly. One of those “how did I miss this game all these years” type game.

Simple.

Core never worked to get a home console port, even though the game originally released in 1989.

Jazz Jackrabbit and the first two Duke Nukem games (the 2D side scrolling ones) are other titles to never receive a home console port. If you want to count the Evercade release for Duke Nukem, go ahead, I am not, I view that as an aftermarket emulation machine, like those Plug and Play compilation console releases.

Rick Dangerous is obviously heavily based on the Indiana Jones franchise – so much so that I am surprised Core did not receive a Cease and Desist over it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-COTuDrh3N8

Familiar Engine Still Impressive

If you are a fan of the Scorpion Engine, then you will want to check out Rick Dangerous. I view the Scorpion Engine like one might Unreal Engine or Unity Engine – it just makes creating games easier.

According to the itch.io page for Rick Dangerous the Sega Genesis port is based on the Nintendo Wii port which was based on the Commodore Amiga port of the original 1989 game.

The graphics are apparently remastered from the Wii version with a new title screen as well, so this is not just a straight port of the 1989 original. I love when fans improve these classics when porting to new hardware – if I wanted the original, I would just play the original.

Interesting tidbit for anyone interested. Back in 2011 I was running a public relations company focused on gaming. I was working on getting an independent homebrew publisher the license for Rick Dangerous for an official home release. Sadly, all the work put into making that happen was fruitless as the rights holders at the time declined licensing Rick Dangerous.

Grab Rick Dangerous on itch.io now while you still can.