Sega PC is Sega's branding for games it releases on the PC. These are usually ports of console based games, specifically Sega console games back when they still made consoles. This ad from 1995 includes Ecco the Dolphin, Comix Zone and Tomcat Alley.
Ecco the Dolphin was originally released for the Sega Genesis and Sega CD. The PC (Windows) version is a port of the Sega CD version with higher resolution graphics. In 2014, an unofficial fixed and enhanced version that made it compatible with newer Windows versions was released.
Comix Zone was a comic book themed action game released for both the Sega Genesis and PC in 1995. The PC version was also re-released in 2010 via Steam.
Tomcat Alley is a full motion video game that was released for the Sega CD in 1994. It was ported to Windows a little later in 1995. The Windows version has better quality video but I was never a fan of FMV games.
Incidentally, these were all Windows 3.1 games which were pretty rare really. It may be difficult to get these working on more recent Windows versions except for the unofficial hack of Ecco mentioned above.
Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2017/08/24/sega-pc/
I am a huge fan of Full Motion Video games myself. Thanks for the info on Tomcat Alley hitting PC, I was not aware that Sega PC actually came through on this release - though I read at least a few times in mags back then that it was possibly coming. Great to know it has better quality video also (the Sega CD just couldn't do these games justice).
That is interesting about Ecco too. I knew it came out on PC but didn't know it used a higher resolution and was based on the Sega CD version. While not a fan of the series, I can see why others like it a lot.
What's unusual about these games is that they are for Windows 3.1. Most games of this time period were DOS based. Windows games didn't really become the norm until Windows XP. I think you might be able to get them to run on Windows versions up to XP but they won't run on 64-bit versions of Windows.
Time to whip out DOSBOX and a copy of Windows 3.1 then. lol
Yeah, I agree, that is weird that they made these for Windows 3.1 instead of DOS. I wonder if Windows 3.1 offered some benefits over DOS?
If anything I would have thought it would have been harder because Windows took up so much of a systems resources. It's possible it made video easier assuming Windows 3.1 had any built-in video functionality. Most game publishers avoided Windows to avoid the overhead. I don't think it was until Direct X came along that that really started to change and even then it took a couple of iterations before it really took off...
Maybe their programmers were more prolific with Windows 3.1 than DOS? Or maybe they were attempting an "Origin" style move of supporting the cutting edge developments?
DirectX was not a big deal until Windows 98 came along so, what, DX 5 or 6, maybe 7? Early on, DirectX was indeed a pile. Too bad Monolith and Microsoft fell out of good terms, it would have been interesting if the engine powering Shogo would have become standard for Direct3D.
does @cleverbot like sega?
Sonic mania goes like tum tum tum dun dun tum tum
Why yes, yes it does. Thanks for the up vote on my blog :)