Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection

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Even though I consider myself a veteran video gamer I can’t pretend that I’ve owned every console or played every game, that would have been an expensive if not impossible task. I do however like to think that over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to own some of the best systems available and played many of the greatest games of all time on them. Yes I’ve probably played more total duffers than gems but as with everything in life you have to experience twenty horrible things before something nice comes along.

I never actually owned a Sega Mega Drive but was fortunate enough to play many of the games whilst over at the house of a friend or neighbour. The Super Nintendo was the console of choice in my household and just like nearly every other young console owner at the time I sometimes wondered what it would actually be like to own the ‘other system’, playing those Sega exclusive games that would never appear on my SNES. Well with Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection for PS3 (and 360) I can at last find out. So it may not have every iconic game to be released on the Mega Drive but it still contains an epic 40 Sega gaming classics on one disc (such as Sonic, Alex Kidd, Streets of Rage and Kid Chameleon) which is more than enough to make a retronaut keel over and drown in their own drool. It might not be truly the same as having owned the Sega Mega Drive but it comes bloody close and is 100 times more accessible. It’s hard to believe that some of the included games are around 20 years old…crazy. Let’s take a look at the list of games you actually get on the disc:

• Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Castle
• Alien Storm
• Altered Beast
• Beyond Oasis
• Bonanza Bros.
• Columns
• Comix Zone
• Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head
• Dr. Robotnik’s MBM
• Dynamite Headdy
• Ecco The Dolphin
• Ecco II: The Tides Of Time
• E-Swat
• Fatal Labyrinth
• Flicky
• Gain Ground
• Golden Axe I
• Golden Axe II
• Golden Axe III
• Kid Chameleon
• 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 2
• Shinobi III: Return Of The Ninja Master
• Sonic 3D Blast
• Sonic And Knuckles
• Sonic Spinball
• Sonic The Hedgehog
• Sonic The Hedgehog 2
• Sonic The Hedgehog 3
• Streets Of Rage
• Streets Of Rage 2
• Streets Of Rage 3
• Super Thunder Blade
• Vectorman
• Vectorman 2

Sega have included some bonus content which can be unlocked with your gaming skill, exclusive video interviews and nine bonus games. Also as you’d expect 360 owners will earn achievements and PS3 owners will be able to get trophies.

With 40 games on the disc it’s impossible to go into detail about each one but what I can say is they all are being emulated very well and seem to play just as they did back in the day. It’s possibly to play the games in their original (albeit slightly rough) quality or with advanced graphic smoothing enabled; personally I found the smoothing made the games look a little blurry and took the pixely look that I associate with these titles away. If you decide to upscale the games on your HDTV to 720p+ then I can see understand that some players might want to enable the smoothing but as I’m playing on a Standard Def TV, this wasn’t an option for me. Something I wasn’t expecting was the ability to bring a friend over to join in on games such as Sonic 2 and Golden Axe which had a 2 player support. For some weird reason I thought that the retro emulation would be for single player so this was a very pleasant surprise as it has to be said a game such like Golden Axe was pretty boring without another human player in the 90’s - let alone today. I can’t deny that playing many of these games on the PS3 pad feels odd, there was something oddly unique about the Mega Drive Pad and its three horizontally placed fire buttons. Overall controlling every game is more or less fine using the Dual Shock 3’s DPad but I was pleased to note that using the analogue thumbstick worked better for quite a few of them including my favourite game on the disc, Sonic 3D.

Being able to save your high score and even your save state in many of the games really does improve things, most games on the Sega Mega Drive didn’t have battery backup or rewritable ROM chips to facilitate saving so those high scores you earned were lost forever when you turned the system off, finally now 20 years later you can regain those scores and keep them for all to see. The graphical menu interface is styled to look like a Mega Drive and brings back lots of memories, seeing all the classic covers and cartridge labels is pretty neat (even if they are the North American versions).

I would recommend Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection for original fans of these 8 and 16bit titles because not only is it terrific value (49 games for the price of one) but it’s a real learning experience going back to these games – they’re totally rock hard. Video games have sure become easier in the 3D generation. If you’re a youngster new to retro games then this is a seriously fun and partly educational way of looking back at the roots of the games you play every day on your next gen console nowadays but it’s worth noting that some of them are really showing their age (yes Altered Beast I’m looking at you) and you may find it a lot harder than you’d expect to sit down and play them for any length of time.

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