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Sega Mega Drive / Genesis

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The Sega Mega Drive is to games consoles in the 90s as George Best was to football 30 years previously. Video gaming and football were obviously around before them but once these guys appeared on the scene, the future would change forever.

The best invention made of black plastic since the bin bag, the Mega Drive revived Sega's fortunes in the marketplace and with some cracking games released during its eight year production its popularity lasts until today.

After the Sega Master System had been overtaken by the Super Nintendo in the late 80s, Sega realised that they had to produce a 16 bit fourth generation console to keep up. It was launched in North America as the Sega Genesis but when it arrived on our shores in November 1990 the Mega Drive was born.

The Mega Drive II followed soon after with a few tweaks making it the best console around. Add-ons would follow such as the Mega CD but even when Sega developed the Sega Saturn in 1998 it was still outsold by its older brother which went on to sell 29 million units worldwide.

With its simple design there was very little that could go wrong, but if it started playing up a simple blow into the port to force any dust out was more than necessary. However there was a glitch where if you gave it a good kick whilst you were getting destroyed on a game it would freeze, ending any torture early.

And there were plenty of classic games to play on it once you'd plugged it in and heard the classic "Segaaaaa" noise. I am partial to a few games of World Cup Italia 90 and still bash buttons on Sonic the Hedgehog which was a worldwide smash hit.

Micro Machines was another favourite of mine due to the fact that you could plug an extra couple of controllers into the cartridge itself for four player gaming. Streets Of Rage was also a cool platform game, and I used to love messing around on Tazmania and Dizzy The Egg too.

Whilst all my mates are purring over their fancy PS3s or Xbox 360s, I still can't resist the urge to set up my Mega Drive from time to time and kick some virtual ass on Street Fighter, safe in the knowledge that I am playing the coolest console ever for a few hours. Well, dust permitting anyway!

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Do You Remember Sega Mega Drive / Genesis?

Do You Remember Sega Mega Drive / Genesis?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    @ john joffrion, the Mega Drive came out before the Super Nintendo.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I had a Sega Mega Drive and so many games. I had Sonic 1 2 and 3, Mortal Kombat and my favourite game of all time Street Fighter 2. I was brilliant at that game as I could beat all of my mates at it. I used to like Blanka as I could do his electric move. Nowadays kids have Wiis, Xboxes and Gamecubes.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I had Columns, Micro Machines, Sonic the Hedgehog, and some footy game I can't remember the name of. I know when you scored it showed a picture of the bloke who scored. Can anyone remember the name of the game?
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Sonic was definitely the best, lost so many days playing this!!! who remembers Greendog? poor but addictive...
  • AnythingButOrdinary7
    on
    My friend had one of these, it was awesome. I loved Sonic The Hedgehog.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I had one of these. i use to play in all the time. my fave game was california games.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    My mate had one and it was the top console of the time, much better than my archaic Master system!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Picked up one off ebay for ?7.99! a quality machine and too many good games!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    We've still got ours and spend many weekends camped on Sonic the Hedgehog! Most of the Sega games actually have cheats that allow you to pick which levels you want to play, it's just a challenge finding out what they are!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Still got mine found it in the loft a little while ago along with a pretty good pinball game and bart simpsons verses the aliens which I was really good at when I was about 14 and now I suck but then again I did use to spend an entire day trying to complete it and becase you had to start rom the very beginning of the game if you lost all your lives not like the luxury of restarting the levels that we get today

Do you remember these?