Sega Mega Drive: Ultimate Collection

For most people my age, the Sega Mega Drive represents a dimly remembered childhood that smells like rainbows and dandelions and homework and the very particular aroma of bubblegum ice-cream vomit. Typical kid stuff. Since I was tragically console-deprived as a tot, however, the Mega Drive represents a period when I was around 20 or so, and my best friend and I worked our way through his entire MAME emulation folder, usually with a bottle of cheap bourbon and far too many cigarettes.

These days I keep only the finest Irish whiskey and I've kicked the smokes, but these Mega Drive games haven't changed a bit. In most contexts, this would be, at the very least, a snidely pejorative conclusion of cultural irrelevance, but somehow where gaming legacy is concerned, it's instead a testament to its perennial dignity. Sure, there's an entire generation of spotty, adolescent spec-drones who won't so much as look at anything that's not slopped over with 4 billion polygons, anisotropic filtering, and the processing capacity of SkyNet, but for the rest of us, there's always the old school.

Developer and retroengineering veteran Backbone has done a killer job on the emulation, with only a few negligible hiccups in the sound here and there that you'd probably have to be a huge Mega Drive nerd to even notice. Your MAME key-jamming days are over, comrades. They've also chucked in this, uh, “nice” smoothing display option that makes every game look more or less exactly like its been smeared over with Photoshop's poster edges filter. Skip it unless you're allergic to honest 16-bit pixel nostalgia (in which case you've no business owning this, anyway, you spotty- adolescent spec-drone). Eminently more useful for cranky old bumblers like me, they've also fitted every single game with state saves – save anywhere, anytime, and just keep retrying the positively impossible Comix Zone until you win (or use the old Jukebox infinite health cheat that's still in there). There's no victory like a victory unscrupulously claimed, after all, and Backbone's totally got your ... backbone here.

I could legitimately nitpick some of the games featured in this collection. I mean, seriously, why include the terminally uncool Ecco the Dolphin over Gunstar Heroes, Battletoads, or Castlevania: Bloodlines? Still, with 49 titles on the menu, it seems somewhat churlish to complain about the few rubbish games, when they're balanced out with stuff like Streets of Rage. And speaking of 49 titles on the menu, here they are:

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
Alien Storm
Alien Syndrome (arcade)
Altered Beast (Genesis and arcade)
Beyond Oasis
Bonanza Bros.
Columns
Comix Zone
Congo Bongo (arcade)
Decap Attack
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Dynamite Headdy
ESWAT: City Under Siege
Ecco the Dolphin
Ecco: The Tides of Time
Fantasy Zone (arcade)
Fatal Labyrinth
Flicky
Gain Ground
Golden Axe
Golden Axe II
Golden Axe III
Golden Axe Warrior (Sega Master System)
Kid Chameleon
Phantasy Star (Sega Master System)
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
Ristar
Shining in the Darkness
Shining Force
Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing
Shinobi (arcade)
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Sonic 3D Blast
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic Spinball
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Space Harrier (arcade)
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage 2
Streets of Rage 3
Super Thunder Blade
Vectorman
Vectorman 2
Zaxxon (arcade)

That's 49 games for around R600. When you consider that Golden Axe and Sonic titles are 400 MS Points (about R50) a pop on XBLA, it becomes abundantly apparent just what outrageously good value for money this collection really is. If you're even remotely sentimental about your old TV gamestations, this is an absolutely non-negotiable purchase. Besides, this title has the easiest 45G Achievement in the history of forever, and it's acquired in the time-honored 16-bit tradition of cheating. There's authenticity for you.

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