Joking aside, game and TV composer Brian Davis’ new album, In Memory of the Mega Drive, features a very interesting collection of music. The 50-track album covers a variety of songs from the system known to North America as the SEGA Genesis.

The album covers some pretty untouched territory including Boogerman and Gadget Twins, but it isn’t all oddities. Aside from the mandatory Sonic the Hedgehog remixes, you’ll also hear more familiar tunes from Toejam and Earl, Ecco the Dolphin, Phantasy Star 3, and Gunstar Heroes, among others.

You can grab In Memory of the Mega Drive right now on Bandcamp for free. Come on! You know you can’t resist more funktastic Toejam and Earl remixes. Not to mention the rock-infused sounds of Cyborg Justice.

There are few games as unique and downright strange as the original “Ecco the Dolphin”. It was really hard, it had a very eerie atmosphere and most of all, it had an insanely weird story. “Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future”, the fourth and final title in the Ecco series, manages to retain all of the difficulty and eeriness of the original series and makes a perfect transition from 2d to 3d.

The visuals are nothing short of awe inspiring, and like nothing else on the Dreamcast. The ocean world is rendered so beautifully, I found myself getting sidetracked from my current objective because it is just so much fun to swim around and look at things. It’s all in the details. Like the tiny barnacles on the back of an enormous humpback whale, or the little specks of sand that are stirred up when Ecco skims the ocean floor.

The story is all kinds of strange. It’s the 30th century, 500 years after dolphins revealed their sentience to humans and dolphins and Humans have decided to co-exist and explore space. At some point, a mysterious foe called “The Foe” decided to destroy Earth, and Ecco is one of the guardian dolphins that must protect the planet. The Foe goes back in time, and takes the Noble Traits of ambition, intelligence, compassion and humility from the dolphins. Each trait was bound to a glowing globe and scattered across the planet, and Ecco must find all of the globes in order to save the future. It was interesting to see how the future changes as each trait is restored.

For example, without any of the traits, the dolphins become mindless animals and humans eventually become extinct, but once the dolphins have Intelligence and Ambition (without any of the other traits) they become aggressive, driving the humans from the sea and conquering all other sea life. It isn’t until all of the Noble Traits are restored that the future can be restored and the Foe is Defeated.

Ecco the Dolphin’s gameplay made the perfect transition from 2d to 3d. A few moves, like a quick 180 degree turn, have been added to make it easier to get around, but altogether, Defender of the Future plays almost exactly like the Genesis versions of Ecco.

Another feature Defender of the future shares with its 2d counterparts is an unforgiving level of difficulty. The puzzles are so difficult I found myself taking wild guesses at the solution until I stumbled onto it, or often had to resort to a FAQ.

The combat is no easier. Most enemies can take some big chunks out of your health bar, and there are a lot of hazards in the environment. On top of all this, Ecco needs to come to the surface for air every 60 seconds or so, adding another level of complexity to the puzzles.

If you liked the original Ecco games, I highly suggest dusting off the ‘ol Dreamcast and giving Defender of the Future a try.