Classics Revisited

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines nostalgia as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period” which in other terms means a desire to return to better times in ones life – which for me was the early 90s. Times were simpler and by the same token, so were video games. Before Sony and Microsoft became the giants of the video game industry that they are today, the market was ruled by Nintendo and Sega. Today, Nintendo is still a monster in the video game market but unfortunately for Sega and gamers everywhere, Sega stopped producing gaming consoles around the turn of the millennium after the Dreamcast failed to compete with the Nintendo 64 and the Playstation 2.

But back in the early 90s, Sega was still a dominant force in the gaming industry and their console, the Genesis, had more classics than I can count. At the time, I often noticed within my group of friends that someone owned either a Super Nintendo or a Genesis, but not both – myself being a Genesis kid. One reason for the division in gamers was obviously the fact that we were young and at the mercy of our parents spending but also because of the games that each console offered gamers. The Super Nintendo already had a huge library of established games and characters to draw from – series’ such as Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Mario Bros. But the Genesis was unique in that it was the first successful Sega console in America. Being that it was the first major success for Sega in America, the Genesis offered new, different gaming experiences that the Nintendo didn’t offer and opened the door for some of today’s most classic games to be created.

Since saying tearful goodbyes to my beloved Sega Genesis, it had been quite some time since I had played some of my old favorites. Thankfully, Sega released a collection of games not too long ago that satisfied a lot of my nostalgic gaming cravings.

The Sega Genesis Collection for the Playstation 2 is a compilation of 28 classic arcade and console games spanning the entirety of the Genesis’ lifetime. But this compilation doesn’t just feature old and classic Genesis games; surprisingly it also has a lot of extra features.

Most video game compilations feel like hastily thrown together attempts at cashing in on a game’s former popularity, but not this game. This collection includes a feature called the “museum,” which is a quick run down of each game, interesting facts about the game, tips for playing each game, as well as box art from both American and Japanese versions of each game. But the extras don’t stop there. Along with the “museum” included for each game, Sega also added tons of interviews from various people who had integral parts in creating many of the classic games, old school Sega arcade games as well as trailers for new games like Virtua Fighter 5 and Phantasy Star Universe. But the interesting part of these extras is the way that Sega made many of these features unlockable content – which is a great way to add some replay value to a collection of older games. But the greatest addition Sega included in this collection was the ability to create save files for every game – a feature in all modern video games that older, less powerful consoles could not include. Granted, many of these classic games are quite short and can usually be beaten in one sitting, a save feature is still a very nice option to have.

But I know what you’re thinking, “All the great features in the world don’t mean squat if the games aren’t fun.” Well good thing for you that Sega included an incredible amount of classic games on one disc. Games such as all three Golden Axe games, Phantasy Star II,III, & IV, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2, Vectorman 1 & 2, and Comix Zone, as well as including many lesser known, but still great games like Kid Chameleon, Bonanza Bros., and Decap Attack plus many more great games.

While this collection does sport an impressive amount of classic games, Genesis had so many amazing games that one collection of this sort just doesn’t do the console justice. If Sega, and I’m hoping against hope they will, releases a second collection of this type, some other classics I’d like to see would be Gunstar Heroes, Toe Jam and Earl, and Sonic Spinball, just to name a few.

I would absolutely recommend this collection to anyone who wants to relive Sega’s glory days or to anyone who still enjoys the games of days past. Oh and by the way, this whole collection is only $20 – which should be more than enough of a reason for any nostalgic gamer to need to own this game.