Watch my other ranking videos here bit.ly/3nL5Yol

I think Flashback is the only U.S Gold game I've owned and it's a classic. I wanted Strider 2 but Electronic Gaming Monthly warned me not to waste my money on it. Thank you, 1990s EGM.

Flashback is a strong S for me. Is not even really a game, is an experience.

Love to see Flashback get some recognition :) One of my all-time favs, and I just bought it on the Switch for like 1 buck... We live in a fantastic era :) Thanks for these videos John!

Love the content brother keep it coming! Retro for life 🤘

I remember being completely blown away by the rotoscoped animation of Flashback back in the day, it was just incredible. It is such a great game even to this day, and quite an exprerience. That game alone redeems the company for all the other crap they published.

The reason for the release of a lot of football/soccer games is because when you look at a map of the world there are a whole bunch of other countries apart from America on there, and in most of those countries football is the most popular sport. The people that lived in those countries also had mega drives.

US Gold always makes me think of Flashback and the old Olympics / soccer games!

Flashback was a great game to come home with when it came out. It is still one of my favorite Genesis games.

Hi! I'm a fan of yours from Chile. There are many great things about you and your passion for collecting, but the thing i like the most is your kindness and positive way to express yourself. I've been watching your "worst 5 (console) games" videos lately and even in that format you manage to transmit peace and calmness to the viewer. I really appreciate that you are always with a smile, kind words and finding good things. You always have good wishes for everybody. Just wanted you to know that you make this world a better place, in particular in times likes these where everything that surrounds us are death, illness and bad news. Keep being immortal! Best wishes from the other side of the planet!

Fun again! I think the soccer craze came from the US hosting the World Cup in 1994. Interest in soccer just exploded. I remember Upper Deck releasing a series of soccer cards, and video games popping out of the woodwork.

I can't believe they did that to Strider. One of my favorite characters and series. Strider 2 (the REAL sequel) for Playstation One was amazing!

Is there a list somewhere compiling all of John’s scores across all these ranking videos? Would be curious to see a list of all the “S” and “A” games at the end of this…

Hi John, hi everyone " Big SEGA Genesis fan, really enjoy the videos", :)

Useless trivia of the day: in Europe, where soccer is beloved, the Kick off series was one of the most played games. Kick Off 2 in the Amiga has legendary status. I never got it, as Sensible felt superior in every way. US Gold was the publisher across all platforms and made a name out of this game. Playing it today makes you wonder what was wrong with kids back in the 80s,90s.

Regarding _Super Kick Off,_ it’s worth noting that the _Kick Off_ series actually started *before* _Sensible Soccer._ The latter zoomed the pitch right out, negating the need for that on-screen scanner, and generally did everything better than _Kick Off_ and was a more-enjoyable experience. Once I played _Sensible Soccer_ on the Amiga I almost never touched a _Kick Off_ game again.

Flashback classic 😃 remember playing it back in the day 😁

Starting KZfaq on a sunday evening and a Hancock Ranking is online. Bliss.

FUN FACT: Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings had backing for it to be a big mascot like Sonic. I have a plush toy that i think was never mass produced as well as an animated show that was supposed to be aired. I have a vhs print pilot episode that never saw the light of day. It's terrible btw. I'm guessing if the games sold better, we would have gotten episodes beyond its pilot.

I love these vids, been very addicting to watch them. Glad you're still making them. Does anybody have your full Genesis games tier list thus far?

Good video and ranking of US Gold games for the Sega Genesis and Mega drive system. I enjoy these ranking videos!

Thanks for the video, John. I love Flashback, as well as its predecessor Another World. Great escapism.

Flashback is one of my all time favorite games I'm glad you gave it an A its awsome probably not what it was then but still a great game

Love your rankings of Genesis games! It was the system I grew up on. I loved the Olympic events games. Lillehammer and Atlanta were my favourites

Thankyou John for doing these ranking videos! It’s a good way to weed out the bad from the good. Sometimes you can’t just buy a book with every game reviewed in it. When you finish Genesis I hope you do other consoles as well. Maybe pal and Japan regions too!

Kick Off 2 was my favourite football game on the Amiga but I haven't played the Megadrive version much. Top down football games were more enjoyable in the early 90s- until Fifa and ISS came along I think they were the most fun.

I like the format of these ranking by publisher vids. More Sega!

Just checked out KZfaq and saw JH on US Gold. I'll have that. Have a great day John. Love these vids.

Again great video. I still wait your ranking of Sega published games. That video would be 10 hour long 😃.

Hi John, thanks for yet another excellent video! Love your work, man! Congrats! Well, I guess the 90s soccer thing in the 16-bit consoles comes from the fact that the USA was host for the World Cup in 1994. Publishers tried to capitalize on that for sure! In the rest of the planet, soccer is probably one of the biggest sports, World Cup or not.

I had loads of US Gold games for my Amstrad cpc 464 not a bad label.

Oh no! Strider 2!

I think Flashback deserves an S. It is a fantastic game, and seeing this for the first time back in the 90s just blew me away, especially the alien levels towards the end with the enemy turning into those blob things and jumping up the walls etc.. amazing.

The original 'Kick Off' and it's sequel 'Kick Off 2' (which I had) were released before 'Sensible Soccer' (which I also had). The Atari ST and Amiga versions were the definitive versions, and unlike 'Sensible Soccer' the ball wasn't tied to your feet, and as such it required a fair amount of skill to be good at the game. One of the best feelings I've had playing computer games is whenever I scored a good goal when playing 'Kick Off 2'. The ability to save the goal to disk was a nifty feature back then, though I never did get round to sending my best goal into a computer magazine's "goal of the month" competition. 😢

Flashback was by Paul Cuisset of Delphine Software, one of the first French developper before Ubisoft (Rayman). US Gold was an early 80s English publishing company, specialised in importing American games, such as California games by the Atari-Lynx guys, to Europe.

He'll ya flashback was awesome. Can't wait to see when john hancock ranks electronic Arts for the genesis

I loved Flashback back in the day. Definitely an A (I’d probably give it an S), but I’m totally with you on Strider Returns. I rented this back in the day and hated it.

I love these videos! Don't stop

The Kick Off games were great games back in their time. Hard to master but a great game series especially multi-player

I'm shocked that you only give a C for "The Incredible Hulk", especially being "a huge Hulk fan". I love this game since my childhood, I only played the SNES version and it's at least an A for me. Okay, I have much nostalgia for it, but even when trying to be objective, I really think it's a great game. For me it's outstanding and one of my favorite SNES games. I don't know if you completed this game, but some of the later levels are terrific. I can only recommend it.

Wow Barcelona 92 and Power Drive. That's my childhood right there.

Never played the Megadrive version of any of these. Flashback looks great! Appears to compare very well to the Amiga version. Strider Returns. It is a reworked version of Strider 2 released on PAL computers. US Gold (ironically a British company) had the rights to the arcade conversion, commissioned the infamous Tiertex as developers, the ports ranged from mediocre to bad, but it sold well so Tiertex got to do a sequel/spinoff across different systems, again, ranging from mediocre to bad. Is the Indiana Jones game the same as the one on PAL systems? Hurricanes looks like it has some similarities to another quirky platformer, Soccer Kid. Izzy looks a bit like a cross between Cool Spot and Ristar. Cool video man!

Never heard of that Hurricanes cartoon series. The game looks like a hoot, though, and I think I may check it out someday...

Great video!

Kick Off was seen as one of the best football/soccer game series on home computers before Sensible Soccer. Although I'm not sure how well it played on the Megadrive.

3:08 The US Hosted the World Cup for the first time in 1994, so there was an explosion of games and TV targeted at the US Market including FIFA games by EA. They were already very popular in Europe and Japan so naturally lots came from there too. Especially after Japan launched the new J-league soccer league.

It's so weird. I remember them also publishing a top down racer game on the Sega Channel. I can't remember what it's name is for the life of me, but it was solid. Might have been only released in Europe.

In the early 80s, the not-very-well-known pop star Geoff Brown saw that lots of games were being released for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64 in the US but not in the UK / Western Europe, so he founded US Gold to publish them. (Some were published on the Euro Gold label.) Later, US Gold did conversions to some other machines and also got licences to write versions of some hit arcade games as well as some other franchises. Many of these were coded by Tiertex, a developer which is not regarded highly. To be fair to Tiertex, some of the jobs they were asked to do were a bit much for the hardware they were working with. Still, those who missed US Gold's early phase will not hold any fondness for the company :-)

Whats up. I missed you by two hours of going live. I am a subscriber to your channel. Do you do Q&A after you uploaded a video. I love your content but I have so many questions. Keep up the good work as I always look foward to your videos as they always bring back good memories not mention as to whatever happened to that game.

Oh man I grew up with the incredible hulk on The game gear it's one of my favorite nostalgic games I really like it

Never noticed I have played so many us gold games back in the day. Super Kick Off being the only one from my "originals" (yes, the game is bad, but since is my "soccer" game, I really love it). Flashback is an S. It deserves it spot on games History. Never forget the day I beat Indiana Jones, god, love that game for being so hard. Lost many hours playing Power Drive, best rally experince. And I really hate, Gunship, Hurticanes and Hulk. Such bad control games.

You have a reference in your video why soccer, as you call it, was popular in the US in the 90s. The World Cup 94 was held in your country.

Ah.. Strider Returns... I had that. I don't think I ever played more than a few levels.

Hi ! First, i love you SEGA videos ! For me Flashback is my favorite game on Genesis so its an S=Super ! I remember in the 90's seeing previews in Electronic Gaming Monthly and i was so looking forward to try it and i probably rented it first but i loved it so much that i Bought it and WOW What an Adventure ! and the movement of your character was so life like ! i was really impress by it ! I was wondering i you played it in the 90's and did you finish it then ? cause im pretty sure if you did that it would be an S ;0) but i respect your A :0) About 1 year ago i bought myself a Genesis 1 HD like i had in 89 and Flashback was one of the first game i bought :0) i still love to play Flashback from time to time. So much great Games on the Genesis ! I LOVE it :0) SEEEEGGAAAA ! Thanks :0)

I think football was massive in the 90s because the World Cup was held in the US in 94.

I rented Lillehammer '94 as a kid. Don't particularly have any fond memories of it, but I played it. Just as well; I was never into sports.

for me Flashback and Power Drive are the MVPs of U.S. Gold's Genesis offerings 100%.

I don't remember seeing it in stores or even being aware of it at the time but I hate thinking that Power Drive is a racing game that I might have ignored as a teenager since it didn't have behind-the-car view like OutRun or even cockpit view like Super Monaco GP or Hard Drivin'. Overhead view was pretty much the only way to do a proper rally game on the Genesis (since you couldn't really do 90° bends or true hairpins with the way they did the track in OutRun) and I also think the overhead view in Power Drive has a certain elegance to it. I especially like the moving highlight reflections on the car to give the impression of 3D to a 2D sprite.

Flashback! A really great looking game. And for me, Olympic Gold was great. It took hours to learn how to pole vault and I like how different people could button bash/run better than others. 👌

Not surprised John gave out a couple of F’s in ranking U.S. Gold games, his Altered beast cap looks cool, where can I get one?

I liked that ol' school 16-bits Hulk. Sure ultimate destruction is way better but that one wasn't bad for it's time.

No one gonna talk about the funky course scaling on the side in that golf game? I had that game on the game gear so didn’t bother with the mega drive version.

Actually, Kick Off on the Amiga was considered the best football/soccer game before Sensible Soccer was released!

I played flashback on SNES emulator because of save state. It was fun!

I think soccer/football was popular in the 90s because of the U.S. hosting the World Cup. Just my theory.

Soccer was popular in the 1990s because USA had the World Cup & the MLS was founded

Oh boy *U.S GOLD* ...this is gonna be fun.

I used to play a ton of world class leaderboard on the C64 😊

God I remember Power Drive. That game whooped my butt back in the day. I was 11 years old and it taught me that driving in snow is horrible lol

Incredible Hulk on Genesis has one of the easiest final bosses in video game history.

Just watched a stream of Winter Games 94 last night.

(reads description) Striker Returns... Oh, you mean _Strider_ Returns.

Hi John, I LOVE Flashback, I have it on Mega Drive, Amiga, PC DOS and an old Macintosh Laptop. The DOS versions’ intro film has some extra deleted scenes in it, it’s like an extended cut! Check it out :)

Fun fact: U.S. Gold is a British company.

I think Flashback deserves an S, and Indiana Jones is D at best.

I would put Flashback as an S. It's the best version of the best game in its limited Genre. To be honest the rest could all be C,D or below though. There's just something about the control of the SNES and Jaguar versions of Flashback that is not as tight as Genesis. For visuals and sound the Genesis, SNES and Jaguar are nearly identical. The CD based versions of Flashback have actually aged worse than the three cart versions I mentioned. If all you can find is SNES or Jaguar it's still fine to play on those, just the Genesis somehow plays slightly better.

John…do you have a video where you rank the Sega licensed games?

Great channel my dude

US Gold were arguably more well-known for their games released on computers, rather than consoles, especially outside the US. They became notorious for publishing average- to poor-quality ports of many hit arcade games (their ports of _OutRun_ being particularly scorn-worthy, especially the dreadful port for the Amstrad CPC).

Small error: Kick Off didnt copy Sensible Soccer. It is actually the opposite. Kick Off came out way earlier and is a very famous Amiga and Atari ST game. Peace!

I actually like strider 2 sure its not on a level of strider 1 but i had fun with it! And 1 thing is better in this game: you can adjust your jump

Akshually... the kick off series has been around longer than Sensible Soccer etc.

Loved Flashback. I especially loved playing it on an emulator-- you could walk through walls (though this would often kill you or freeze the game)! Made the game MUCH easier; you could beat the final level almost immediately. I went to the '96 Olympics in Atlanta. Great fun, but what a stupid looking mascot Izzy was.

The company was actually Brittish, despite what its name could suggest...

Loved Flashback. Hulk was average. The other games I played were terrible.

The reason why games like Hurricanes existed for the Genesis is gaming companies were trying to capitalize on the FIFA World Cup being hosted in the US in 1994. Boy the junk they would make just to make a buck haha

When did Dave Attel start reviewing old-school video games?

Those game were pretty good looking

You do know U.S. gold where English. That might explain why they released so many Football games.

You should look up the US Gold ‘World Cup carnival’ fiasco

I'd love to see the SNES version of this series of videos.

I was.like 5 when we got an nes. In 1990 and strider was.one game I could never figure out revisited it couple years back and understood what I was doing but its still hard ... U ever play kung foo heroes

I played The Incredible Hulk when I was a kid i never got passed the first level tho but looking back I think it's a cool game with cool levels and great music and level design..some of the bosses are cool but that last boss is terrible and could've been done better!

U enjoyed Flashback but have u played the remake? I know ProJared ripped it to shreds.

Olympic gold and Beijing 2008 are easily 2 of the best Olympic/track & field based games made - both A titles for me!

Lots of teirtex conversions here. Strider 2 was horrendous and I'm amazed capcom let them publish it Flashback was among the best us gold released..

When did Rick Steiner start reviewing video games?

Also, Flashback is an incredibly good game but let's not give US Gold any credits for that. They just published the game. Flashback is a work of art from Delphine Software, who had made Another World/Out of this World previosuly and actually made a few excellent games during its history. And Shaq Fu. But let't not talk about that. :)

Head on Soccer is by far the best Soccer game for SNES.

Every body says the strider 2 is bad but I oppose to this idea,I played this games to the end,this is hard I agree but this is better than the strider one,because it has better effects after destroying enemies and the screens are regular so that the strider one had irregular screens and graphics,it has shurikens but the strider one had only one move,the music in strider 2 is better than one,the strider one had irregular musics,I love strider 2 so much thus is exact and standard in hitting and jumping but this is so hard.