Retro compilation discs. A sentence that will mean different things for different people. For those of us with winter stealing into the garden, it's a chance to revisit those all time great titles that we lost many hours to, before the rose tint fades and we realise that, for the most part, nostalgia has played a cruel trick yet again. For the younger tykes, it's a chance to see what all the fuss is about, before setting the pad down perplexed, asking if that's all there is and going back to angry men in tonnes of metal chewing the (brown) scenery and blowing aliens into a fine paste.
Chances are, you already know whether this title is for you or not. A quick scan of the some forty or so games on offer shows the inevitable Sonic, Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage and Columns games, and the people who buy this have no doubt played these to death on the original console, as well as numerous emulators, and even other compilation discs. Which leads us to the first of this title's problems. The selection of games is a mix of the usual suspects, mentioned above, along with a clutch of Phantasy Stars, a few “first wave” titles (Decap Attack, Eswat, Altered Beast) that have aged really quite badly, and some filler. It's difficult to imagine anyone lamenting the loss of Fatal Labyrinth from this collection had it happened. Unfortunately, almost all of the games on this disc have suffered from the ravages of time, with the platformers escaping the most unscathed. Yes, going so fast you outrun the screen in Sonic is still a thrill, Ristar is an underrated gem, and Dynamite Headdy remains the second best Treasure game on the Mega Drive/Genesis, behind the exemplary Gunstar Heroes, whose omission is nothing short of baffling. Racing games are overlooked entirely, and third party games are ignored completely, making the Ultimate Mega Drive Collection a misnomer, unless you add “of games made by Sega” as a qualifier.
The games are emulated well, with sharp and colourful displays as long as you leave smoothing off, looking and sounding exactly as they should, for better or worse. So this leaves us with the only other possible draw for a compilation like this. The extras.
Anemic. A few arcade and master system games, usually counterparts to ones in the main Mega Drive collection, fail to impress, and there are a handful of interviews with weary looking developers who seem tired of revisiting these well trodden, albeit important, career defining games. The equivalent of shouting “play Freebird”. There's a little background information with some trivia snippets and box art for each title, and that's it. This may seem like expecting too much, but bear with me.
When a classic movie is repackaged for some sort of anniversary, or just a general rerelease on a new format, it's usually packaged with a wealth of extras, including adverts and interviews from the time of original release, as well as retrospectives, making ofs...and so on. I'm one hundred percent behind rereleasing older games that are easily lost for good when the typical five year cycle of a console is over, but in order to persuade people to shell out the cost of a full budget triple-A title on what is essentially reheats, they need to come with something, anything, to please both those of us looking for a heady shot of nostalgia, and those of us looking for a history lesson.
Pros:
There are a few games that have stood the test of time, and nearly all are worth revisiting, even if just for nostalgia purposes.
Flawlessly emulated, with the option to fill a widescreen without awkward stretching.
Cons:
No online multiplayer.
Quite poor list of extras
You've paid for all this before, many, many times.
3/5
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Topic: [Review] Sega Mega Drive/Sonic's Ultimate Collection (Read 538 times)