Catching Up With the Genesis

Okay, confession time. While I was a big Atari 2600 and NES fan, I mostly missed the Genesis, Sega Saturn, and SNES days. My excuse? I'd like to tell you it was because I was focused on my studies in high school and college… but that would be lying. Closer to the truth: I was spending my time drinking and chasing girls. Beyond the occasional casual jaunts of Super Mario World or Street Fighter II, gaming just wasn't a big part of my life until I finally decided to buy a PlayStation on a whim back in 1996. As a result, I've got a sizable gap in my gaming history, one that seemed perfectly justifiable back then but, these days, feels like wasted time.

So, for someone like me, Sega's upcoming Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 feels simultaneously retro and brand spanking new. Loaded with more than 40 games from Sega's revered console including, as the name suggests, a load of Sonic games, you'll likely find something in the lineup that tickles your fancy, or drums up the nostalgia. Highlights for me included Streets of Rage games, Shinobi III, Ecco the Dolphin, and the utterly innovative (and really, really hard) Comix Zone. Check out screens of the game here.

In addition to the 40 games that are available as soon as you pop in SUGC into your console, there are a few surprises hidden away for you to uncover. These goodies include more games (including the original Phantasy Star, which wasn't a Genesis game but complements nicely with Phantasy Star II, III, and IV, which are also available in this collection). In addition to the extra games, the collection also features original box art you can peruse, and video interviews with many of the creators of the games that are featured in this collection. To unlock extra games, you need to complete certain tasks in other games. For instance, to unlock the classic isometric arcade space shooter Zaxxon, you need to earn five bonus coins in the platforming game Decap Attack.

The old-school graphics for some of these classics don't always hold up--though the bright, attractive color palette of some of the original Sonic games are a testament to those early games' quality. That said, you have the option to either play the game in the original aspect ratio, or stretch things out to widescreen, if you're playing on an HDTV. Not all of the game's benefit from expanding the screen width--in fact, of the games I tried, only Ecco really benefited from the feature. A smoothing option reduces some of the graphical ugliness but, none of the games in this collection are going to end up looking like Sonic Unleashed.

Despite the Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection's odd name--which makes it sound like simply a collection of Sonic games--this seems like a fun collection for fans who want to relive Sega's glory days or, for folks like me, want to play some of these classic games for the very first time.

List of Games:
Alex Kidd
Alien Storm
Altered Beast
Beyond Oasis
Bonanza Bros.
Columns
Comix Zone
Decap Attack
Dr. Robotnik's M.B.M.
Dynamite Headdy
E-SWAT
Ecco the Dolphin
Ecco: The Tides of Time
Fatal Labyrinth
Flicky
Gain Ground
Golden Axe
Golden Axe II
Golden Axe III
Kid Chameleon
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star III
Phantasy Star IV
Ristar
Shining Force
Shining Force 2
Shining In the Darkness
Shinobi
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic 3D Blast
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

Unlockable Games:
Alien Syndrome
Altered Beast Arcade
Congo Bongo
Fantasy Zone
Golden Axe Warrior
Phantasy Star
Shinobi Arcade
Space Harrier
Zaxxon