Sega’s 32X and CD Rigs Are Officially History

Another one bites the dust.

It didn’t take a genius to see that Sega’s ill-fated 32X and CD systems were on their last legs. But the video-game giant has made it official by announcing that the two rigs are now out of production and the flow of games--already a trickle--will stop.

Taking a look at one of the 32X’s last games--The Amazing Spiderman: Web of Fire--makes it pretty clear why the Genesis peripheral never really caught on. Web of Fire is a straightforward side-scroller that looks and plays only slightly better than its 16-bit cousins.

Some of the action--generated by the same folks who delivered the fantastic Vectorman on Genesis--is smooth, and most of the backgrounds are richly detailed. But overall play is too repetitive to be fun for long.

Characters suffer from the 16-bit kind of limitations that keep the size of heroes relatively tiny. Hardly the kind of performance expected from what was billed as a doubling of processor power.

In fact, the 32X only once delivered the kind of play that could make it competitive with other next-generation machines on the shelves. But why spend close to $200 just to play Virtua Fighter when another $100 buys a true 32-bit rig?

Sure, 32X bridged the gap between 16-bit and 32-bit gaming, but the increment was never large enough to muster a following of any size. With its product line pared down, Sega should now focus on delivering some killer games for another sagging system--the Saturn.

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MARATHON 2: My buddies George Derk and Marc Rickenbach from Thousand Oaks wrote in a few months ago to critique the dino-fighter Primal Rage. This time, George and Marc take a look at Marathon 2 for the Macintosh, the first time this column has ever given ink to a Mac game.

Here’s what they had to say:

“We really enjoyed playing the new Mac computer game Marathon 2: Durandal, a sequel to Marathon. This time, Durandal, alien intelligence that controls most of your mission goals, has you do a mission in a distant alien world.

“In the original Marathon, you saved a space station. This time, you save an ancient alien clan called the S’pht from the evil aliens called the Pfhor. Your weapons or carnage tools that you pick up along the way are pistols, grenade launchers, shotguns, missile launchers and flame throwers.

“As always, your most important ‘weapon’ is your intelligence and what you learn along the way. A new twist in Marathon 2 is that you can go underwater now, which means when you’re under you lose oxygen and can’t fire your guns either.

“Another difference is that the Bobs have guns now and even transport in sometimes and kill bad guys for you! If you crazily ran around in the original Marathon killing all the Bobs, you shouldn’t do it this time because they’ll shoot back.

“The changes in Marathon 2 made the game more interesting, exciting and fun. Even though you are shooting aliens all the time, the thing we like the most is thinking to get past and figure out levels. Rating this game on a scale from one to 10, we give Marathon 2 a nine.”

Thanks, George and Marc!

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ALIEN TRILOGY: Perhaps the best game on the once-promising Atari Jaguar was Alien vs. Predator, a creepy first-person shooter that mixed true fright with true fun.

Unfortunately, a very similar Alien Trilogy for Sony PlayStation misses the mark. Technically elegant and quite nice to look at, Alien Trilogy has no obvious problems. It just doesn’t have much going for it either.

I hate to dis a game that looks and plays well, but maybe I’m just burned out on the flood of Doom-like adventures. None match the original, so my attitude is: Why bother?

Rent Alien Trilogy and enjoy it for what it is: a clone that doesn’t quite measure up.

Staff writer Aaron Curtiss reviews video games regularly. To comment on a column or to suggest games for review, send letters to The Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311. Or send e-mail to Aaron.Curtiss@latimes.com.