Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection Impressions

If you even have a whiff of retro gamer in your blood and own a 360 or PS3, do yourself a favor and pick up Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection from your local digicrack dealer. At $30 brand new, this collection is positively the best value on the market. You get almost 50 classic SEGA Genesis and SEGA Arcade games, and they are emulated perfectly. Also included is the ability to zoom and stretch the screen slightly for 16:9 displays, and a smoothing functions which does wonders for removing the pixellation of the older titles and giving them a slightly more impressionistic look. Also included are system level save states - you can save any game at any point, which makes otherwise impossibly difficult games like Comix Zone playable.

Even if you take out all the other games, just for the Sonic games, Streets of Rage 1-3, Golden Axe 1-3, and Phantasy Star 1-4, the collection would still be an absolute steal. That there are over 30 more games (Fantasy Zone, Shinobi III, Zaxxon etc) included is just positively ridiculous. Its a gift from SEGA to retrogamers. Sure, there are some stinkers in there that might only be fun for 5 minutes or an achievement, but the cream of the crop is so good, and the value is so great, that complaining about the omission of Gunstar Heroes, or anything else for that matter, seems pettty. The best $30 you will spend in 2009.

No comments: