Sega has now released The Ultimate Megadrive Collection from Xbox 360 and PS3, and to be frank, it has a very impressive roster. There greats are certainly all included in this bundle with appearances from Sonic, Golden Axe and Ecco and mentioning these few famous names barely touches the other 30 plus titles. There is such a mixture of games here that it us hard to even decide what game to play first. 

 

To break things down a bit we will split the review into the different genres included on the disc, and so we start with the beat-em-ups. Retro fans will be pleased to know that the classic Golden Axe games and all three Street of Rage titles are included on the disc, you also have Alien Shock and the great Comix Zone, a game that I did not play the first time around but absolutely love now. Comix Zone sees you play as a comic artist who has been sucked into his own work, leaving him to fight against his own creations to save himself. The graphics are really great looking for a Megadrive title, capturing the idea of being in a comic book, the level design also lends a hand to this conic feel by having to negotiate through panels, borders of artwork and you even get comic speech bubbles. In general there is a good mix of games on the beat-em up side of things, with the affore mentioned games being the pick of the bunch.

 

 

On the platform front there are of course the Sonic titles, but even though you have Sonic and Knuckles you don't have the linking capability of the original game or even that from earlier compilations, not sure why they missed that out. Alex Kidd makes an appearance in The Enchanted Castle, but shows that some games should stay in the past, reminding us of just how hard to control and punishing some of the earlier games were, thankfully Vectorman 1 and 2 are here to show how good the Megadrive really was. Ultimate Collection also has two of my favourite titles of that era in Decap Attack and Kid Chameleon. Decap still looks great after all these years, throwing you head around to stun enemies and Kid Chameleon with its title characters ability to change powers is a real platforming gem.

 

Puzzle fans are kept happy with Mean Bean Machine and SEGA'a answer to Tetris, Columns. Not forgetting the RPG fans, you are treated to some real classics like Phantasy Star 1 to 4 and Shining Force 1 and 2. There are also a few games thy don't really fit into the usual genre slots, like Flicky, where you have to collect and guide ducklings to safety in a very fast paced Bombjack style game.

 

With most of the games being over 15 years old they are not made for HD widescreen TV's and the initial settings will have you playing each game with huge borders. You can stretch the image to fit your TV and also smooth some of the edges out, while you lose some of the crispness on screen, it looks pretty darned good. I for one enjoyed playing games without having to squint to read the ridiculously small HD typefaces that a lot of current generation games tend to use.

 

 

The achievements in the game seem to want to tempt you into playing the first few levels of each game, hoping to keep you hooked once you have started, this however is not always the case, I would of liked to have seen an achievement for each completed game, 5 points or thereabouts, just to make you play each game a little more. As you unlock achievements you also unlock some of the games extras, there are a few interviews with developers but more importantly there are some extra games including the arcade version of Altered Beast (much better than the Megadrive version), Golden Axe Warrior and Alien Syndrome.

 

There are a few glaring omissions to the classic titles, Afterburner and Outrun don't make a show, perhaps because Outrun is being reworked (does this mean a reworked AfterBurner is on the way too?? Yes please Sega) but there are enough games to warrant a purchase, plus it is at a very sensible price. I will ask though, when, if ever will we get some Saturn, MegaCD, 32X or even arcade collections? We are always shown the great Megadrive titles, generation after generation, I think its time for SEGA to move on.