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A TRIBUTE TO THE MEGA DRIVE - by Mr Biffo

20/2/2017

44 Comments

 
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In a rare moment of prescience, Sega made the decision to move into home gaming after predicting the decline of its arcade business (a decline, hilariously, that it then helped to exacerbate - a bit like a sailor saying "I'd better get off this boat, because it's probably going to sink"... before proceeding to exit the ship by smashing his way through the previously intact hull using a clawhammer).

Indeed, the guts of the company's Mega Drive - its third home console - were hewn from Sega's own System 16 arcade hardware, which had provided the power behind the likes of Golden Axe, Shinobi, Altered Beast, and ESWAT.

Something that most of us in the UK either tend to forget, or aren't even aware of, is that the Mega Drive was a flop in its native Japan. Faced with competition from the unassailable lead of Nintendo's NES - or, as it was known over there, the Silk-Henry (Famicom) - Sega tried desperately to gain a foothold.

When Mega Drive games weren't "cutting" the "wasabi", Sega launched a modem and something called The Mega Anser. This plug-in device offered online banking, an answering machine, and life insurance quotes - all of which could then be printed out to show to your friend's dad, excitingly.

​Somehow, this still wasn't enough to dislodge Super Mario Bros. from the top of the charts...
WELCOME TO BRITAIN
It took a year for the Mega Drive to be pumped into the US - after Atari turned down the offer to distribute the hardware, and Sega had to establish its own US subsidiary. The company was also forced to rebrand the North American version of its machine as 'Genesis', following a copyright dispute with the 70s British prog rock group Mega Drive.

As well as attacking the NES head-on, by pushing its 'arcade-perfect' games, a big part of Sega's approach to the US market was to license the names and faces of top sporting celebrities such as Arnold Palmer, Joe Montana, Tommy Lasorda, Permy Telescope, Circumstance Cupholder and Jerry Lol-butter III. This proved to be a moderate strategic success, and in its first year the Genesis sold half a million units. Although, this was some half a million less than Sega had originally stated it was aiming for. 

Would that glass be half full, or half empty there...?

The Mega Drive finally reached British shores at the arse-end of 1990, and Sega was far more warmly embraced by our creamy European thighs. There was already a modest UK following for the Master System - the Mega Drive's predecessor - which had sold between 10 and 13 million worldwide (roughly the same as Nintendo's Wii U, interestingly). 

Inevitably, many System 16 arcade games ended up on the Mega Drive, albeit not without highlighting that the home version of the hardware was significantly less powerful than its arcade counterpart. This was never more evident than with Altered Beast, the game which Sega inexplicably chose to include with the European version of the Mega Drive - a move that's akin to Nissan releasing a new car, and promising that every model comes with a rotting clown carcass on the back seat.

Nonetheless, while we may have received the Mega Drive later than the rest of the world, the UK and Europe swiftly became a key territory for Sega.
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MIXED BAG
The Mega Drive launch line-up was a mixed bag, with Golden Axe unquestionably the highlight.

Super Thunder Blade - the only other game I bought for my Mega Drive in that launch window (£189.99 from the Special Reserve catalogue, y'know) - was an ugly mess, especially in comparison to its arcade counterpart, with which I was inappropriately familiar.

It was hard not to feel disappointed. I was already a Sega Master System owner, but had never really loved it. The Mega Drive, however, had looked like an entirely different kettle of eggs; I'd been whipped up into a dank froth of excitement with issue 10 of S: The Sega Magazine - later to be rebranded as Sega Power, though at this point little more than a pamplet -  and the first issue of EMAP's endearingly glossy and bold Mean Machines. The Mega Drive, I was assured, would be the games machine I'd always wanted.

Still, it took a while before the Mega Drive grew on me. I'd liked Golden Axe, and been impressed by Ghouls N Ghosts, which I'd bought a short time later (though I was turned off by its punishing level of challenge). It might seem like an odd choice, but Rambo III was the game which helped me turn the corner.

For the most part it was an uninspiring top-down shoot 'em up, but the boss stages were viewed over Rambo's shoulder, and had you firing arrows at helicopters and tanks. The combination of the bow and arrow physics, coupled to a subtle 3D parallax effect, made me think that the Mega Drive had some real potential - until that game, I'd never seen anything like parallax on a home system.

It was in effect again in Micky Mouse and the Castle of Illusion - arguably, the first great game for the Mega Drive (though with hindsight, the gameplay is incredibly simplistic). Then came The Revenge of Shinobi, and the Mega Drive at last offered a game that delivered on its promise in every single area.

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BIG MISTAKE
There were still highs and lows, however.

I made the mistake of buying Electronic Arts' godawful Budokan - one of the worst martial arts games of all time - and Sword of Sodan, but was also pleasantly surprised by Arnold Palmer Golf, and NHL Hockey. James Pond II: Robocod, Strider, Toe Jam & Earl, and - obviously - Sonic the Hedgehog all greased my box.

The impact of Sonic on the Mega Drive's fortunes can't ever be overestimated.

Though these days the character is considered something of a joke - recent Sonic games being akin to Cliff Richard releasing a trip-hop album ten years too late, in a bid to make himself relevant - at the time he was he embodiment of everything Sega had aimed to be; cool, slick, and iconic.

Alas, Sega's fortunes started to change as early as 1992, when the Super NES was released. That was the point at which the Mega Drive had to work extra hard to keep my interest. Next to the Super NES, the Mega Drive was beginning to show its age - it had been around for five years at that point, and side by side with the SNES, the console base unit, the joypad, the visuals... were all starting to look dated. Sega released an updated version of the hardware, but it was little more than a cosmetic refresh.

However, I could never have predicted the reason I finally fell out of love with Sega: I unexpectedly became a games journalist, and didn't get along with Sega's own public relations person.

ABRUPT
For the first few years of Digitiser's existence, we were dismissed in the most remarkably abrupt manner by Sega's PR guy - who clearly didn't believe Digi's readership figures, and did his best to ignore us, presumably because we were on Teletext. I can't blame him for that - he certainly wasn't alone in thinking we were a joke - but having been an early adopter of the Mega Drive, it was hard not to receive it like a kick to my thoraxes. 

I've surely written before about the time Mr Hairs and I arrived for a pre-arranged meeting at Sega's HQ - about a 15 minute walk from Teletext's offices - only to discover that the guy had forgotten he was seeing us. Adding insult to injury, he stormed red-faced into reception, as if it was our fault that he'd forgotten, fuming he didn't have the time to see us, because he was in a meeting with the boys from CVG.

He spoke of them with the sort of reverence one typically reserves for royalty. We were left with no illusions as to who he considered more important - and his behaviour certainly fed into our own petulance, and sparked what became something of a petty feud with EMAP's mags. With nothing to lose, we resolved to make life as difficult as possible for Sega - suggesting that perhaps he could've worked a little harder on his PR skills.

Our relationship with Sega improved massively when he left, and was replaced by somebody far nicer and more reasonable, but the damage was done by that point; Digitiser had nailed its colours to Nintendo's mast. Not that it mattered particularly, because by then Sega started shooting themselves in the foot by being real silly.

For the record: Nintendo were fairly dismissive of us too, but at least they always sent us review copies, returned our calls, never hung up on us, or went mental at us in the lobby of their HQ. 

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BAD BAG
Sega started to confuse everybody, not least itself, starting with the release of Sonic & Knuckles.

The game stretched the Sonic franchise beyond the point of over-familiarity, and featured a needless lock-on feature, which allowed the player to insert an earlier Sonic game, and play through it as Knuckles the Enchilada, or whatever he was meant to be.

The same year - 1994 - Sega released a Mega Drive version of Virtua Racing, which retailed at £70, because it featured a "Sega Virtua Processing" chip. To say that it was priced out of the hands of Sega's core adolescent audience was an understatement. 

Then it all went really wrong. Despite the glaring disinterest in the Mega Drive's CD-ROM add-on, the Mega-CD, Sega went ahead and released a second Mega Drive peripheral - the 32X - in the same breath as announcing the Mega Drive's successor, the Saturn.

Anybody could see the logic deficiency in this strategy. It was irrelevant whether the 32X was any good or not - contrary to popular belief, it was fine, even if it did sport a rather limp games library (more 32X games were released than you might think, but most of them weren't worth playing). However, as a cartridge system it felt old-fashioned, and as a piece of hardware it felt like a stopgap. Even the Sega diehards were prepared to wait for the true successor to the Mega Drive.

Still, for what was - with hindsight - just a blink of an eye, Sega was a major combatant in the home console wars.

Whether that happened by design or luck, it doesn't matter; over 30 million Mega Drives were sold worldwide. That was some 20 million less than Nintendo's Super NES - but it was a bitterly fought battle in every territory except Japan.

Arguably, Sega's marketing positioned the Mega Drive as the younger, cooler, sexier machine - selling it as much as a lifestyle accessory as a video games console. It's a lesson that Sega would take a mere four years to forget entirely, but its impact still resonates today; Sony would borrow liberally from the early-90s Sega playbook, when it came to marketing its PlayStation.

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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

Hey kids - Mr Biffo's been talked into hosting a Retro Comedy Night at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge on March 4th.

​You'll have the chance to see episode one of Mr Biffo's Found Footage before anybody else, AND witness the comedy stylings of YouTube's Ashens, and a myriad of other comedy greats.


Tickets are just a tenner, and all proceeds are to help pay for immunotherapy treatment to help Matthew Dons (aka Karamoon) - who was unexpectedly diagnosed in July 2016 with advanced and aggressive bowel cancer, aged just 36.

It'll be a splendid evening of fun and hoots, and you'll also get a chance to mingle with the - ha ha - stars, as well as have a look around the museum's collection of geeky tat. Please come along.

Go now to the event's Facebook page.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
A "TRIBUTE" TO THE WII U - BY MR BIFFO
​
A TRIBUTE TO THE SUPER NINTENDO - BY MR BIFFO
THE SCARIEST TOP TRUMPS EVER
44 Comments
Kelvin Green link
20/2/2017 11:52:57 am

There's a great book out about the Mega Drive; a reprint is being Kickstarted here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darrenwall/sega-mega-drive-genesis-collected-works-reprint

As I understand it, Sega US was pushing the 32X because it thought there was still life in the machine, while Sega Japan had moved on and was behind the Saturn.

I have a great deal of fondness for the MD. Some of my favourite games of all time are for that wonderful console -- Sonic 2 is up there with Super Mario World, I reckon -- but even I couldn't be won over by the haphazard attempts to expand the machine and prolong its lifespan.

Final Mega Drive memory: the newsagent on the high street of the quiet Sussex town in which I grew up had -- for some inexplicable reason -- a Japanese Mega Drive for sale. I wanted it and asked my gran if she could loan me £190 from the money she had been putting aside for me so I could buy it. She refused, which in hindsight was probably for the best, as then I'd have a Japanese MD and no way of getting hold of Japanese games for it. Thanks gran!

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Nick
20/2/2017 01:56:08 pm

That's a nice looking book. I think I'll back that.

Console Wars by Blake Harris is a well written, if slightly uncritical, look at Sega of America's highs and lows during the Mega Drive era.

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DEAN
20/2/2017 04:49:20 pm

Aye, that tome looks mighty fine; got style!

I want a Mr Biffo book that comes wrapped in a wee tarp sleeve, though.

DD
20/2/2017 12:02:30 pm

I haven glorious memories of:
Road Rash
Micro Machines
Toe jam & Earl
Aladdin
Red Alert
LHX Attack Chopper
Rock and Roll Racing

There'll be many more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

Pretty much all my mates had Megadrives instead of the Snes, so our game pool was huge.

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Stoo
20/2/2017 12:25:02 pm

Never played the Megadrive version, but LHX on PC was quite fun. I remember you could launch hellfire missiles at camels....

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DD
20/2/2017 12:02:55 pm

I haven glorious memories of:
Road Rash
Micro Machines
Toe jam & Earl
Aladdin
Red Alert
LHX Attack Chopper
Rock and Roll Racing

There'll be many more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

Pretty much all my mates had Megadrives instead of the Snes, so our game pool was huge.

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Stoo
20/2/2017 12:21:55 pm

Huh, I always thought this was Sega's second console. Turns out there was a predecessor to the Master System that I'd never heard of - the SG-1000. So I learned something new today.

SNES will always be a superior machine in my eyes, but the Megadrive did actually get my favourite of the Castlevania Series (Bloodlines). Also I loved Shining Force.

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Kelvin Green link
20/2/2017 12:32:17 pm

The SG-1000 was the predecessor of the predecessor; there was an SG-1000 II, then the SG-1000 III, which was released as the Master System worldwide.

Shining Force reminds me that one thing the Mega Drive had going for it in Europe was that you could get rpgs on the system; the SNES had the reputation as the console for rpg fans but half of the games weren't released in Europe. At least the Mega Drive had the Phantasy Star series.

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Stoo
20/2/2017 05:56:25 pm

I learned two new things today!

Ben Stevens
20/2/2017 12:33:21 pm

Terrible what happened to Permy Telescope, mind you, sounds like everybody was at it in that era.

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Gordon Ramsay's furrowed brow
20/2/2017 01:16:56 pm

As an Amiga zeolot I had seen the Megadrive, but only it playing Altered Beast which I think was the UK bundle at the time, and my first thoughts were "if THAT croc of shite is what they are bundling with the console to show it off, christ knows how bad the rest of the games are" - then went back to playing Sam Fox Strip Poker or some shit on my Amiga.

However, a year or so later another mate showed me Ghouls n Ghosts running on the Megadrive and my jaw literally hit the floor.

Doubly so when he showed me that it loaded from a floppy disk via his Super Magic Drive, and then showed me about 100 3.5" floppy disks, each with a game to be played.....

Oh those were the days.

Now I just use Recalbox (Retropie is just too fiddly), the internet, and lots of nostalgia.

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Andee
20/2/2017 01:26:22 pm

I have many fond memories of the Megadrive.
My Uni housemate was bought one by his girlfriend from back home in the mistaken belief that this might prevent him from being the £1 a pint night lothario we all new him to be.
We spent hours and hours playing NHL - a game which I have never seen on TV or on real life but I do know the rule about "icing" thanks to the MD experience.
We rented the Virtua Racer game for a weekend and basically ran it for 72hrs to get our money's worth. It wasn't a patch on the real deal at SegaWorld Bournemouth but then it didn't cost your student-loan- a-minute to play it in our lounge while drinking discounted time expired tinned lager.
Happy days when I thought a 10am start and 4pm finish was a long day and we could play all night without consequences.

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Biscuits the character
20/2/2017 01:50:15 pm

This was the biggie for me, I had one and so did my friends. Fun game at sleepovers: Streets of Rage 2.

There's countless games I was obssessed with for this system, but I'll always think of Dynamite Headdy as being the pinnacle. I still love it to pieces today

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Biscuits
20/2/2017 02:42:57 pm

Also one of my friends had the MegaCD, and Mega 32X too. Night Trap genuinely was scary, I promise. Other than that I barely remember either system. There was a good shoot em up on MCD, but I can't remember what it was called now.

Then I went to SegaWorld, which was amazing, and that's about my entire interest in post-Megadrive Sega.


Wait, Yakuza 0 is really fun

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DEAN
20/2/2017 05:44:44 pm

I just had to Google that Dynamite Headdy game - it looks all kinds of crazy cool. Can't believe I overlooked that one - all I can think is that the boxart put me off. Or it wasn't on the shelves I looked at.... I mean, I think the name alone would have had me; it did today!

And it predates Rayman - the protagonists remind me of one another.

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Keith
20/2/2017 02:36:17 pm

Not so much a tribute as a bitter ex having a rant at a funeral. But fair.

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Clive Peppard
20/2/2017 02:41:26 pm

Road Rash.

That is all.

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Crunchy Bumpkin
20/2/2017 03:11:13 pm

Skitchiiiiiin'

*buddabeeeooowww*

*chug chugga-chugga chu-chuuug*

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DEAN
20/2/2017 05:15:05 pm

Choad 'tache.

It was pretty fun, tbf.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
20/2/2017 03:02:55 pm

I wasn't that interested by the SNES... Nintendo's twee and saccharine preachy attitude, and obsession with cramming Mario into everything, successfully turned me off.

I was, after all, and adolescent and that meant I needed things to be as mature as possible (violence)

While I did enjoy the Genesis, my real love was the Sega CD. Look beyond the FMV games and you'll find some stonking good "normal" games. AH3 Thunderstrike was a superb first person helicopter sim, Terminator was a massively expanded rendition of the Genesis original with colossal levels and excellent sound. There was a fully voiced version of the originals Winf Commandee that was far better than the weak SNES port. And, of course, Sonic CD, the best Somic game ever.

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DEAN
20/2/2017 08:18:02 pm

Peachy, I can see, but where you gettin' preachy from, Meatball?

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RG
20/2/2017 03:12:44 pm

"The impact of Sonic on the Mega Drive's fortunes can't ever be overestimated."

It made all of Sega's employees into a multi-billionaires?

:)

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speccy pedant
20/2/2017 03:34:39 pm

The fortunes of Sega's individual employees do not necessarily reflect the fortunes of the Megadrive

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DEAN
20/2/2017 04:34:14 pm

Great memories of the Megadrive.

Bought a Japanese import pad to 'experiment' with and always thought our white version looked uncoloured-in.

Phantasy Star II and III
Also really liked The Sword of Vermillion.

Yes, Arnold Palmer's Golf was very good - first decent golf game I remember playing - even got some wacky alien shit in it, right?

I always loved Ghosts n Goblins, Ghouls & Ghosts and even Firebrand's spinoff, Gargolye's Quest, but WOW they were hard. Ruined everything hard. Awesome music and artwork, though. Hearts pants.

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Biscuits
20/2/2017 04:52:13 pm

Speaking of Toejam and Earl, one of the defining games of my youth, how ominous is that remake looking? 2 years on and the website for it still looks like this: http://tjebackinthegroove.com/

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Nikki
20/2/2017 06:19:08 pm

Mega drive? More like MEAGER drive AMIRITE LOL

No. I am not rite. For it was good.

What a pointless comment this has been. Albeit with an ok pun.

I'm not well.

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DEAN
20/2/2017 07:45:24 pm

For what's it's worth, I enjoyed it, Nikki.

I also enjoyed thinking about Hammerite paint and the cool patina it gave everything and/or anything - be it an old bike or a shiny cat.

Smegma Hives?
That's probably what's wrong with you.

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Matty
20/2/2017 06:26:54 pm

"Arguably, Sega's marketing positioned the Mega Drive as the younger, cooler, sexier machine - selling it as much as a lifestyle accessory as a video games console."

Interesting you say that, as I remember all the adverts for the MD being none-more-aimed-at-adolescent-boys.

I was an Amiga owner back in the day so the MD was the "enemy", in the poisonous fanboy mentality that shows sadly little evidence of ever fucking-off from videogaming, but I'm reconciled to it a bit now. There are some cracking games - Streets of Rage 2, Gunstar Heroes - and the conversions of Ghouls 'n' Ghosts and Strider are a perfect example of how to do it right. The sound was a bit rubbish, though, and that really shows, especially in the Amiga ports (sorry, I told you there was little sign of it fucking off); in fact one of the credits to Streets of Rage 2 is just how good the music is, even if the sound effects are the usual MD buzzy stuff.

Plus the Mega CD has the best version of Final Fight on any system, and that's a pop fact.

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DEAN
20/2/2017 08:05:50 pm

Yeah, I remember the same really. Sony made gaming seem sexy like awesome beach parties with hot people and cool DJs. Sega were more like sock-filler enablers. Nintendo were like a pet that you didn't even need to worry about neutering - just wasn't interested in any of that. Like a squat-in-the-middle python. Or an upside-down badger.

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Kara Van Park
20/2/2017 08:10:57 pm

Interestingly, both the advert campaigns for the SNES and Megadrive were spearheaded by two actors who were in Bottom (the sitcom, not the body part)

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Eddie Hitler
21/2/2017 09:35:00 am

Ade Edmondson did the cyber razor cut stuff?

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Oliver Wright
21/2/2017 05:36:05 pm

Although I was a fan of The Young Ones, Bottom and Street Fighter 2 I remember seeing Rik Mayall doing an advert for Street Fighter 2 Turbo on the SNES and feeling vaguely patronised due to it being unlikely, in the opinion of my 14-year-old head, that he'd actually played it.

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Monkey Head
20/2/2017 08:48:55 pm

Loved my Mega Drive, bought it because I thought it looked cool. Was particularly fond of Desert/Urban Strike, SOR, Mortal Kombat, and some Muhammad Ali boxing game that whilst decent seemed far better in the shop than 1/2 hour after I got it home but I tried to convince myself It was great because I'd payed full whack for it. Got mine chipped in a local for American games but it never worked properly again.

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Sludge Factory
20/2/2017 09:10:05 pm

I remember withdrawing £40 from my post office savings to make up the shortfall to purchase Virtua Racing for £70 at my local woolies. Picked up the game from the shelf drooling at the screenshots and spent 10 mins trying to talk myself into parting with all that cash. So much money. I left it on the shelf went home and cried. Rented it years later from blockbuster, what a load of old toss the game turned out to be. Still, the megadrive was boss. Ghouls n Ghosts was the closest thing to having an arcade experience at home I'd ever had.

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Gosunkugi
20/2/2017 10:28:39 pm

Now I look back on it, *slow disolve* I was incredibly fortunate despite coming from a not very well-off working class family to have owned a NES, SNES, and Megadrive. In hindsight, especially when reading other gamer's tales from the Biffo-verse, I realise how unusual that actually was.

They weren't so much my salad days, but more like pickled onion and Marmite afternoons, filled with shady characters and pub dwelling sinisters bearing Paul Calf moustaches who'd sell you their mum's own furniture if it meant they could get £20 for a bag of gormless dust. Being surrounded by such ne'er-do-wells meant we'd have incredible moments when second hand gaming systems would land like prize salmon in our laps.

To say I loved all my consoles equally would be an understatement of Brobdingnagian proportions, and I never tired of rolling my eyes at the so called console wars going on around me. I've witnessed mass schoolyard fights, actual gang wars over Alex Kid vs. Mario. One Nintendo loving kid lost an eye when he insulted a Megadrive owning Outrun fan by referring to the music track as Magical Golden Shower.
Each system had their own strengths and exclusives, and time passed differently then, summer holidays lasted an eternity, so even though games could be well over-priced, we thought nothing of saving copper shrapnel like boys possessed, sometimes waiting up to a year to pick up a much sought after title.
My dad, though, in a rare moment of game-related kindness surprised me no end by buying me Road Rash as a birthday present. That could have gone a lot worse for me, just imagine if his eyes had drifted to the right or left of the games rack, I could have ended up with a Rise of the Robots or Shaq Fu. (I know, I got the years off, but I'll be here all night if I have to think of any more duffers starting with R or S.) He must have had an unconsciously savvy gaming taste though, as he followed it up that Christmas by (albeit mistakenly) getting me a Japanese import of Strider, (HOW DAD?) Which was a better version, not just for the box art, but because they kept in Monsieur Hiryu's grunt of "Hah!" when he swung his laser sword, a fact I never ceased to rub in the face of the only other person I knew who owned the game.

I wish I still had my original Megadrive. I swapped it for a guitar, and it felt like giving up a newborn child for adoption. Yeah I knew it was a mistake, but it was a Squire!

I picked up another MD a few years later, a model II, but it wasn't the same. It's still in the drawer next to me, and I'll occasionally pull it out to look at, and hiss "you're not my son" before putting it back.

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DEAN
20/2/2017 11:43:38 pm

Consoles & 'Tars - Love 'em :O)

I'm going to make a few points/observations now. Some of which are me agreeing with you, possibly strategically so that I can Trojan Horse in my nitpicking pedantry later on without seeming like a troll/prick.

I too was spoilt with consoles. Only thing I was ever spoiled with, though - Star Wars figures, He-Mans... never had too much of that stuff but consoles...I had most of them... certainly the well known stuff.
Even so, I was (am) still a Nintendo Fanboy.

I hate doing this but this guitar you got in a trade... it wasn't a Squire.
It was a Squier. Sorry, but... no, there's no excuse, I'm just awful :O(

My first quality instrument was a Squier - a black strat, possibly Korean made and I loved it LOTS. Traded in for an Ibanez because I wanted a Floyd Rose to do Steve Vai stuff.... hated it.

Yes, the Megadrive II thing is tacky. I've just come back from the states and whilst there I saw an NES redo. Never even knew they existed! Got to play Zelda on it :O)

HERE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_(Model_NES-101)

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Gosunkugi
20/2/2017 11:56:53 pm

The Squeir was soooo heavy to hold. My first guitar was an Encore from Argos for under £50 and was light enough to float away in a breeze, so it was a total shock to wrap my hands around the well endowed body of an actual guitar for the first time. For a skinny teen who's only muscles were in his thumbs, the Squire took a lot of getting used to, but I loved it as well, even on the tinny practice amp I though I was Yngwie. In truth I probably sounded like four cats, mating in a barbed wire bag.

DEAN
21/2/2017 12:04:06 am

LOL, you probably did.

My first guitar was also from Argos, may have been an Encore, but definitely was a classical guitar. I remember turning all the tuners to face the same way and just thought that pros were either too cool or lazy to bother. I had no idea you had to tune the bloody things!
Off to a slow and not particularly promising start.

James
20/2/2017 11:24:16 pm

Anyone else remember Circumstance Cupholder's Super Raffia Weave-Off 3? I could never get past the fourth stage, where you were pitted against the Frinton-on-Sea WI Crafts Guild :(

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SonOfPurple link
21/2/2017 09:56:39 am

HONK. The MegaDrive has fond memories for me, being as it was my first home console (we'd dipped our 'toe' into the gaming 'water' a couple years earlier with the Game Boy). To a young who was aware of games and had played them elsewhere, there was something magic about slinging that black cable into the back of the telly and pressing the button that sparked the Sega greatness. Seem to recall the first game we had was Disney's Aladdin, still recall the frustration at not quite getting through without some life-sapping misstep. Vectorman was a later favourite, along with the previously-cited Robocod and Dynamite Headdy (indeed MD nostalgia led me to snap up Robocod on DS when I happened across it in CEX not long back. ) Micro Machines 96 was a huge timesink, particularly with its lovely track editor mode, complete with code generator so you could painstakingly type your tracks into a mate's machine (eat shit and die, memory cards!) There was thar one with Taz (of Taz-Mania.) And it's also the MD that gave me my first bit of Fifa gaming - though as I'm not a sports fella I just enjoyed punting the ball things around the 'pitch'. Still got a fat stack of old MD 'carts' clogging up a corner at'ome, despite long since switching to take the PlayStation dollar once the much-admired Mega crapped out, so maybe this pang could get revisited one day...

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Ade_R
21/2/2017 12:26:34 pm

I got one of those all-in-one mini Megadrives for my birthday the other week. It has a load of Sega games pre-loaded on it, plus a load of non-Sega games which might qualify as some of the worst games in history, ever.

There's an issue where it seems to run all the Sega games at 2/3 speed, so Sonic & Knuckles becomes a leisurely forest-based amble and Mean Bean Machine is an exercise in extreme confectionery dropping patience. There's also an issue with the sound - like one instrument is playing in a different key to the rest of the music, which makes Sonic's end-of-stage sound like some trippy Jazz Fusion jingle and the soundtrack to Green Hill Zone bizarrely upbeat and melancholy at the same time.

As for the non-Sega games. A relaxing Mah-Jongg session becomes a sonic nightmare that makes me want to skewer my eyeballs with knitting needles after going on a destructive rampage in the living room. Similarly Air Hockey is maddeningly cumbersome to play with a soundtrack that would induce seizures even in the deaf and a Game Over screen that had me in fits of convulsive laughter.

Having said all that, it's possibly one of my favourite birthday presents ever.

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Heeden
21/2/2017 03:09:02 pm

"When Mega Drive games weren't "cutting" the "wasabi", Sega launched a modem and something called The Mega Anser. This plug-in device offered online banking, an answering machine, and life insurance quotes."

I had to google that thing because it neatly skirted the line between "things that might be real" and "things Mr. Biffo says which are completely ludicrous."

For those who are curious, it is real.

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rhubarb
21/2/2017 07:11:07 pm

wait, so the Mega Drive name wasn't used in America because it clashed with a UK band, so they decided to rename it the 'Genesis'?..

Great plan Sega, its a wonder that Phil Collins didn't Sue (su-sussidio).

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Panama Joe
23/2/2017 07:04:53 pm

Multi-platform games on the Mega Drive were usually comparable with the SNES, albeit with some minor degradation on sound and colours. But as a teen the Mega Drive's game line-up always appealed more - EA Hockey, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Road Rash, Jungle Strike, Sonic, J-cart version of Micro Machines 2, Dynamite Headdy, and Gunstar Heroes.

Envious as I was for Super Mario World, Mario Kart and F-Zero, the Mega Drive always felt like it was keeping up with the newer, more modern SNES. Heck, when Mortal Kombat came out on both systems the SNES version didn't have the mortal bits included. Oh how I mocked the Nintendo kiddie console.

But then later on the SNES got a decent version of Doom, while you needed to fork out £150 for the 32X add-on to run it on the Mega Drive. No thank youuuu! R.I.P. Mega Drive. Hello Playstation.

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