SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection Comments by Simon Parkin

A Lamborghini is a waste of money if you can steal a brand new one and never get caught.

WiiWare is 'original' games.

Virtual Console is 'retro games'

FYI

For it to be truly ultimate it would need EVERY Mega Drive game... Or at least Castle of Illusion.

Farzlepot: emulators are only legal *IF* you buy the ROM to play (or if you bought the cart on Ebay and extracted the code). Which you can do if you really want to, but it's pretty difficult - like most things, companies haven't embraced emulators and put put legit versions for sale, even for stuff that stopped making money for them decades ago. As usual, it's a heck of a lot easier to find illegal ROM copies for download. But some companies have opened up the back catalogue and given them away (usually old home computer games). A bit of googling will tell you which.

That said, although I'm generally against piracy, grabbing a copy of an obsolete game 20 years after it stopped being sold and making the owner money doesn't do much harm IMHO. Especially one (like Sonic) I've bought a couple of times already or owned back in the day. These collections are OK to save the hassle of emulators, but mostly it's money for old rope.

But an iTunes of ROMS to buy for a quid a go would both make it legit, make the owners some moneyoff of old IP, and keep our consciences clear. Not expecting it any time soon though. :/

*sigh*

It absolutely disgusts me that people would ACTUALLY pay money to play games that were release over a decade ago. Go onto Google, type sega emulator and you will have full and unlimited access to play any of these old games that you want. And guess what? It stops giving money to lazy publishers who are only looking to make a quick buck and actually force them to create some DECENT games. However, Sega is so dead I wish they would hurry up and shut down for good. The ironic thing is that the homebrew emulators are actually SUPERIOR to the emulator used by Sega themselves. It sickens me.

Are these emulators legal?

Yes.

Specifically, is downloading ROMs legal?

No.

Btw this compilation is superb value for money.
Yes, there are a few titles I would have like to see also included, but just look at the list, so many great games on it.

9/10 for me.

Funny how sega stop making hardware.. and all of a sudden people dont mind admitting they enjoyed segas games - without all this fanboy nonsense tarnishing people is it?

It wont happen any time soon.. but i wonder if the same thing would happen if nintendo got out of the market?

Pro_Gamer: "It absolutely disgusts me that people would ACTUALLY pay money to play games that were release over a decade ago."

It really disgusts you that people would pay for games? Why does the age matter? What is it about gaming that makes you think it should be free after a certain amount of time?

It looks more like you have a different point to make, that you're actually upset at what you perceive to be a cash cow. Funnily enough, it's an optional one. You don't have to buy, but that doesn't make the ones that choose to into strange, brain-damaged cretins. Maybe we just fancy buying some games.

It really disgusts you that people would pay for games?
Look, these games are rubbish. If you are going to pay for software, it needs to have longevity and creativity to warrant a sale. If you have a look at what Bungie do, they carefully create each masterpiece BEFORE offering it for sale to the public. This is what every publisher should be like. Instead, we have people giving money to Sega for no good reason whatsoever.

"Masterpiece"

Lol

Man SEGA should be shot you could fit the ENTIRE mega drive collection PAL/USA/JAP on a dvd9 3 or 4 times,40 would fit on a cd and nearly a floppy LOL........

"Funny how sega stop making hardware.. and all of a sudden people dont mind admitting they enjoyed segas games - without all this fanboy nonsense tarnishing people is it?

It wont happen any time soon.. but i wonder if the same thing would happen if nintendo got out of the market? "

LOL what are you talking about big N HAVE gone, and I miss them dearly.. :)

So when were people "ashamed" they enjoyed the MD anyway?

Pro_Gamer ('Naive_Businessman,' 'Confused_Moron') has just become one of my favourite trolls of all time.

Bravo sir!

Not gonna bother - all the games I want I bought at the time or used shortly afterward. Though it's a hassle to hook my Genesis Sega CD 32x up (three plugs, ffs) at least I don't have a horde of unwanted shit and also have stuff like the amazing Terminator CD.

@Pro_Gamer

It absolutely disgusts me that people would ACTUALLY pay money to play games that were release over a decade ago
...
Look, these games are rubbish.

I have this nagging feeling you were not even born when these games were released.
Why don't you go back up to your room and play your "Halo" and leave the adults in peace?

That said, although I'm generally against piracy, grabbing a copy of an obsolete game 20 years after it stopped being sold and making the owner money doesn't do much harm IMHO. Especially one (like Sonic)

Fair point, VERY bad example of a game though.

The original MD Sonic is still a very commercially viable property for Sega. Between these compilations, downloadable content on the current consoles and stand-alone handheld devices it's fair to say that "Sonic 1" is very much still relevant and profitable for Sega. Thinking you've 'paid for it' by buying the original release is by the by, I went to the cinema to see Jurassic Park AND bought it on VHS, I then bought it on DVD etc etc...

If you were to mention an obscure game from an obsolete company that has no chance of ever seeing the light of day again, then you probably have a fair point as nobody is likely to ever make money from it again. Many titles are still commercially viable in one way or another though and have become more so these days, which in my opinion makes ROMS/emulation less clear cut than it may have been 5 or 6 years ago.

@ secombe

I don't agree, those are new games on new systems I don't see why you are a pirate if you play an old MD version rather than pay again to play it on your 360.

If they had their pound of flesh I see nothing wrong in dowloading ROMs especially if those formats are no longer on the shelves. It matters not that these companies want to re-release titles on NEW formats for new customers (and sopme old fans - I still buy a few I have on PC emulation)

Although that indeed is the grey area for emulation do/did you pay originally, but then who cares those machines are not in the shops.

Anyway surely the MD roms are legally free to download now? Recently Dreamcast became legal in the US I believe, is Europe that far behind...

>>Anyway surely the MD roms are legally free to download now? Recently Dreamcast became legal in the US I believe, is Europe that far behind...

umm, where did you read that?

the problem with this release is that most of the games here have been released in previous collections. companies keep releasing slight variations of the same subset of sega-published (hence the lack of most of the highlights of the third party-heavy megadrive library) titles, and it's high time they were called out on it.

and the achievements - most of them are attained by doing nothing more than loading up a certain game(s)! those that aren't are just utterly trivial challenges like using your sonar to talk to a dolphin on ecco. that's not 'casual-friendly', that's just utterly pointless, and a real sticking-point as a lot of the titles on offer here would benefit from some quantifiable goals to get you past that "my, this hasn't aged well" factor. ironically, it'll be the hardcore gamerscore whores who will lap this up for the fact that you can max it in a couple of hours.

a real stinker.

@Gecks - "the problem with this release is that most of the games here have been released in previous collections."

It's a valid point, but it's a symptom of a larger problem, that of the hardware having a relatively low lifespan. If we bought a music CD in 1992, we can still play it on today's hardware. We can barely even do that with a game bought in 2002 as neither the 360 nor the PS3 provide full backward compatibility, and few systems in the past did so.

The only way, therefore, to ensure a given generation can play the classics in a legal fashion is to re-release them, just as music became available on CD and latterly digital downloads, and video back catalogues made the jump to DVD. And so with gaming, we get single releases as downloads, or these whole packs.

@frycrayola
that's a fair point and i'd never really thought about it like that :)

however, in this case at least the 'sonic mega collection' (which contains all the sonic and sonic-related games here, plus more) is 360 and PS3 compatible, and the PS2 'sega megadrive collection' which contains most of the rest is also PS3-friendly.

i don't expect people to dig through crates to find these just to make a point, but it does seem like these collections are becoming a license to print money.

The PS2 games are only PS3 friendly if you've one of the backwardly compatible models that aren't made any more, though. It's a shame, as it really should be the norm. Certainly the 360's successor had better be compatible or we're all fucked!

This is a little unreasonable - the space on a blu-ray disk is around 40-50 gigs each game/ROM only takes up 3-4mb each. I think they could put the entire MD collection on there.

Evidently and unforgivably missing:

Outrun
Turbo Outrun

Midnight Resistance

any shooters

the amazing arcade conversion of Double Dragon

and loads more besides

@ Dillinger

Can't remember where sorry one site somewhere (it was only a few weeks back two - after the EG article I read that somewhere). It's still illegal here tho

Ultimately the emulators are good for what they do and cheaper, but the PS3 Collection is perfect with no slowdown or sound defects.

However I'm not sure if we have the 60hz Genesis versions as I have not done a side by side comparison.

Any one tried to test this yet?

@ProGamer:

"Look, these games are rubbish. If you are going to pay for software, it needs to have longevity and creativity to warrant a sale. If you have a look at what Bungie do, they carefully create each masterpiece BEFORE offering it for sale to the public."


You say games need longevity and creativity.... Which is fine... But then you mention BUNGIE of all companies?!?

Oh brother.

So the emulators are legal, but the ROMs aren't - unless you have the capability to rip them from the cartridge for yourself.

Back to hoping for a Sonic 3 & Knuckles release on LIVE then!

If they had their pound of flesh I see nothing wrong in dowloading ROMs especially if those formats are no longer on the shelves. It matters not that these companies want to re-release titles on NEW formats for new customers (and sopme old fans - I still buy a few I have on PC emulation)

Although that indeed is the grey area for emulation do/did you pay originally, but then who cares those machines are not in the shops.

Without getting into a full blown piracy/emulation discussion...isn't anyone who gets hold of free ROMs potentially meaning that the new revenue streams for these games loses out (be it compilations, Virtual Console etc)? You are essentially getting something for free which can otherwise be purchased legitimately, albeit on a new format.

A few years ago there may have been less of a case in that respect, but 'retro' gaming is huge business even if the original cartridges etc can no longer be bought new.

How is that different from downloading an old movie from a file sharing site, but where there are plenty of options available to still get hold of that movie legitimately (DVD, BluRay, On-Demand, Rentals etc)

fuck it i am going to be brave and jump right in there and ask...........

How in fuck do you get the 100000 points on altered beast on the first level ?

ps sorry should have stated it is for one of the achievements ,i have had alot of fun trying to get but damn is it frustrating

hahahahaha some achievements look quite easy but are not indeed :P Its cool though that i have a good collection of sega mega drive games it reminds me a lot :))))