Thursday, November 06, 2008

20 years of Genesis

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Sega Genesis.

If you're in your early thirties, you might have fond memories of playing Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, or Streets of Rage on a Sega Genesis.

Yes, I do.  All three.

I bought a Genesis about a year after it came out, after months of saving.  I think it was released without a game, so I got the second SKU, the one with Altered Beast.  This was before Sonic came out.  (I think I was too young to work most jobs, but the point was moot, since my parents never let me get one until I was in college.  My father insisted it would interfere with my grades too much.  Perhaps he had a point, since I did earn a rare merit-based scholarship.  So I saved money from my one lawn-mowing customer a week at a time -- pushing the family lawn mower almost half a mile, including a stretch of gravel road.  Did I mention the driving age in NJ was 17 at the time, now 18?)

Anyway, the Genesis was a Big Deal for me.  I was mostly on my mission when the Saturn was getting its butt kicked, so I was still a Sega fan when I got a Dreamcast.  Poor Dreamcast was EOLed less than a year later, but Shenmue still kicked the butt of anything released on the PS2, even now.

Today you can get a Genesis collection for the ps2 or psp for around $20.  What a deal!  Unfortunately it doesn't include any of Genesis' fantastic shooters, probably because that genre doesn't really exist anymore.  So no Thunder Force III or Phelios for you.  But it does include the Phantasy Star games, so that's at least half a glass full of awesome.  Alas, I doubt Matthew will have the patience for those old 2D rpgs by the time he can read well enough to actually play them.  But he enjoyes the arcade-style games well enough.

Good article.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Who did you mow for?

Jonathan Ellis said...

I remember where their house was, but not their names, sorry.