The Megarist of Consoles (Sega Megadrive)

Member Name: rob_writer

Product:	Sega Megadrive
Date:	31/03/02 (3291 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good games

Disadvantages: Ad-ons flopped

Sega's Mega Drive was perhaps the first games console to really capture the public eye and go mainstream. For the first time ever playing computer games was no longer the haunt of the 'geek'. It was Sega's finest hour, but sadly also it's last great success, after the Mega Drive things went downhill fast for the Japanese company, resulting in the company leaving the console hardware market (they just make games now).

The Mega Drive had one serious rival - Nintendo's SNES. I remember at school there were two main groups, the people who had a SNES and the people who had a Mega Drive. It was akin to supporting a football team, you chose which console you wanted and that was an identity you had! The SNES was technically superior to the Mega Drive, and even played host to a version of Doom, but the Mega Drive won out in the popularity stakes, with it's cool ad campaign, better looking console and of course, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Back in those days it seemed that a console needed a flagship game, or character to define it. While Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic the Hedgehog, and thankfully for Sega people seemed to prefer the Hedgehog. The Sonic series was always immensely popular, and even tended to come boxed with new Mega Drives, or even built in to some.

The Mega Drive may be old hat now, but in it's day it was an advanced piece of kit. It had 16-bit graphics which at the time looked great, and as it used cartridges so games loaded instantly - a big advantage over computers like the Amiga.

What really made the console great were the games. There were loads to choose from, some of them I still play regularly today (using a Windows based emulator). The Sonic series was naturally very popular, and rightly so, they were good games. The Shining Force series of RPG games was immensely popular too, as were the early FIFA games by EA. I remember many a weekend spent playing FIFA 95 with my friend, although
I seemed to lose more often that I won. One of my favourite games was MicroMachines 2. While the Mega Drive only came with two controller ports, you could buy 'multi taps' that let you plug in up to eight control pads. The MicroMachines cartridge came with two built in joypad ports, allowing 4 controllers to be connected. With 2 people sharing a controller (it was fun!) eight people could play at once. Although we only managed to get eight controllers and eight people together all at the same time once, I can still remember the fun had playing the game.

Sega didn't stop with the Mega Drive though, they tried to release add-ons for it. The original Mega Drive was soon superseded by the remodelled Mega Drive 2, which was smaller and sleeker. A CD based add on, the Mega CD was released (and soon the Mega CD 2 to complement the Mega Drive 2) which allowed more powerful CD based titles to be run on the machine. It was very expensive though, and did not prove a massive success. As the console was nearing the end of it's life Sega announced the release of the Saturn, their 32-bit console which was to be the rival to the Playstation. At the time they also announced a 32-bit add on for the Mega Drive. There were all sorts of rumours that this add on would let the Mega Drive play Saturn games, but this myth was soon dispelled and the upgrade, known ad the 32X was released. It flopped, massively. No one bought it, and only a small number of games were released. Some were very good, but it was technically inferior to the Saturn and Playstation. The 32X could also be hooked up with the Mega CD to play 32X CD games, but this feature was even less popular as few people had both add-ons. The Mega Drive lived on for a year or two after the 32-bit consoles were released, but one can't help but feel that the 32X was the start of Sega demise.

The Sega Saturn featured a cartridge slot, which at one point it was thought may have been able to accommo
date Mega Drive games. With the success of the Playstation 2 (and it's backwards compatibility) one can only think that omitting this was a mistake from Sega. The Mega Drive was a very popular console, and many people may have bought the Saturn over the Playstation if it were backwards compatible with their Mega Drive games. Sadly it wasn't, and most people moved (as I did) from a Mega Drive to a Playstation. The Saturn, and then the Dreamcast flopped, leaving Sega with no choice but to pull out of the hardware market. The Mega Drive was their finest hour.

Nowadays you could pick up a Mega Drive with loads of games for peanuts, but then you need to hook up a TV and all sorts. Much easier to download an emulator (Gens is the best) and then the roms of the games you like!

Overall the Mega Drive was a great console with some great games, and was instrumental in making games cool. Top marks to Sega.

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