The Sega Saturn NetLink League

Some of the best video game experiences I've ever had were playing the NHL series for Genesis on Xband, Nhl 95 and Nhl 96 mostly. The only other game I tried on the service was Mortal Kombat II; I got destroyed. I wanted to ask the Xband veterans here: What was your favorite Xband game? What games did you play over Xband?

lol you lost in mortal kombat 2? the gamers back then must of been really hardcore

Indeed. There were some highly skilled fighting game players. From my understanding Killer Instinct was big, too. Some of these guys were quite literally, masters.

it will be interesting to see how good they still are when the servers come back with a vengance i remember playing mortal kombat in the last 90's on the genesis but not online

I was big into the NBA Jam, and Mortal Kombat. My brother partook in Madden and NHL. On the SNES side when I got to borrow one, Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat 2

NBA Jam was great. Did you guys see that it's going to be released on Xbox Live Arcade as a remake, with the same type of gameplay?

I was addicted to Super Mario Kart. We had a decent number of local players (around 10), but they were rather easy to beat once my friend and I got on Nationwide and started learning things from the XB SMK veterans.

NBA Jam TE was a blast too. I played a good amount of that locally.

I remember towards the end of the Xband era, when it was restricted to local only, the wait to have an opponent became longer and longer, to the point where even the "20 minutes" to wait setting was ineffective. Still, was nice during Xband's heyday to have the option to play against people locally. A lot of the time these guys were real close by.

Seeing as I never had the opportunity to play games using the XBAND before, I have no nostalgia for playing using that service. However, the game I'm most interested in playing is Super Mario Kart.

i cant wait to play mortal kombat 2 online for genesis

For those of you that were on Xband, how many people were in your local area?

Unfortunately for me... 2. One of the guys was almost non existant. I did catch up with him at some point for NHL. Most of the friends I met were from the 10 snes users in my area

Genesis side - Mk2, primal rage, mortal kombat (original) and mk2, nba jam for sure and super street fighter 2. i played alot of diffrent ones, but i think mk2 and super street fighter 2 were the most common ones i played.

i never got into the NHL 94-95 games but i really wished i had.

This brings up another question. Where in the world are all of the former Genesis Xbanders hiding? I have found hundreds of SNES XBers, but only about 30 or 40 Genesis ones. And that's crazy too, because the Genesis modem came out much earlier.

Xband411 wrote:This brings up another question. Where in the world are all of the former Genesis Xbanders hiding? I have found hundreds of SNES XBers, but only about 30 or 40 Genesis ones. And that's crazy too, because the Genesis modem came out much earlier.

I'm also surprised, because somewhere around '95 and '96 it didn't seem like there was any shortage of Xband users on the Genesis, and I'm sure a lot of people owned/used for both platforms.

I actually have another question for you guys: How did you hear about Xband? Was it through Blockbuster (I heard they were part of the original nationwide rollout)? Toys 'R Us? EGM?