The thing about speed is that you don't really understand it until it's taken away from you. I learned this the hard way when my mate Dave brought his SNES round for a sleepover, and we spent half the night arguing about whether Mario moved too slowly compared to Sonic. Dave was wrong, obviously, but watching Mario's careful, considered jumps after months of Sonic's breakneck sprinting felt like watching paint dry in slow motion.See, I'd…
My mate Tony called me an idiot last Tuesday. Not for anything particularly stupid—well, more stupid than usual—but because I'd just spent twenty-five quid on a pristine copy of Mortal Kombat II for the Mega Drive. "You know you can download it for free, right?" Yeah, Tony. I know. But you can't download the weight of that chunky cartridge, can you? You can't download the satisfying click when it slots into the console, or the…
The other day, my seven-year-old discovered my old stack of Mega Drive cartridges and asked why they looked like "chunky Game Boy games." I nearly choked on my tea. After explaining that his beloved Switch cartridges are basically the great-great-grandchildren of these plastic bricks, I realized it was time to show him what real Sonic looked like—not the Hollywood version, but the original blue blur that made my Saturday mornings worth living.Setting up a Genesis…
You know that feeling when a game arrives and immediately makes you question every life choice you've made up to that point? That's exactly what happened when I picked up Jurassic Park for the Mega Drive back in '93. I'd seen the film twice—once with my parents, once sneaking back in with mates using the classic "we're just popping to the loo" maneuver—and I thought I knew what dinosaur terror looked like. Turns out, Spielberg…
The other day, my kid found one of my old Sega Genesis cartridge boxes in the loft—you know, those long cardboard affairs that could double as rulers if you were desperate enough. Streets of Rage 2, spine slightly bent from where I'd grabbed it too eagerly one too many Saturday mornings. She held it like it was some archaeological find, which… fair enough, really. "Dad, what's this?" she asked, and suddenly I'm explaining the entire…
You know what's weird? I was sorting through a box of old Mega Drive carts last Tuesday—the kind of procrastination that happens when you should be doing actual work—and I found my copy of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. Just holding that chunky plastic shell again brought back this rush of memories from 1990, when celebrity tie-in games were about as common as decent arcade ports and twice as likely to be absolute rubbish.But Moonwalker? That game…
Six AAs. That's what stood between you and portable 16-bit bliss back in 1995, and let me tell you, the Sega Genesis Nomad burned through those batteries like they were made of spite and false promises. I remember seeing one in the wild for the first time at a mate's house—this chunky black brick that somehow managed to swallow entire Genesis cartridges and spit out full-color Sonic on a tiny screen. My brain couldn't quite…
There's something beautifully ironic about finding a massive collection of Sega Genesis games sitting pretty on a PlayStation console. I mean, back in the day these were sworn enemies—you picked a side and stuck with it like supporting a football team. Yet here I was in 2006, sliding that Sega Genesis Collection disc into my PS2 and feeling like some sort of gaming diplomat bringing peace to the living room.The timing couldn't have been better,…
You know that sinking feeling when you're holding something brilliant but nobody else seems to get it? That's how I felt clutching my Game Gear in 1991, watching mates queue up for grey Game Boys like lemmings heading for a cliff. Sure, the Game Boy had Tetris—fair play, absolute masterpiece—but my Game Gear had Sonic in full colour, proper sound that didn't wheeze through a tin speaker, and a backlight that meant I could actually…
You know what I miss about being thirteen? The absolute certainty that a thirty-second TV advert could change your entire worldview. I'm talking about those Sega commercials from the early '90s—the ones that didn't just sell you games, they sold you an entire identity wrapped in attitude and blast processing.Picture this: Saturday morning, I'm sprawled on the carpet with a bowl of Frosties going soggy, when suddenly the telly explodes with speed lines and that…