16-Bit Sega Genesis
Last updated: Tuesday, August 4, 2009
When the Sega Genesis was released in 1988 is came out towards the end of the NES’ reign. It’s graphics dwarfed that of the NES and the arcade ports were closer in quality then what we were seeing on the NES. They’re slogan at the time was “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t” which was a pretty juvenile comment but was really accurate. The jump was about on par with the Atari 2600 to NES leap in graphics. Sega was the underdog in the 8-Bit wars and definitely wasn’t gonna play dead in the 16-Bit arena.
One of the coolest peripherals for the Genesis and one that shows that Sega cares about it’s customers was the Power Base Converter. With it you can play all of the Master Systems games on the Genesis which added hundreds of titles for the system. A very nice piece of equipment and one I bought as soon as it was released.
After the Super Nintendo was released and started to gain on the Genesis they decided to up the ante and release a CD-ROM for the Genesis. In theory this was a good idea but for anyone who lived through FMV hell you know they killed the system because of that. Every company had a FMV game and they all were crappy video with limited interactivity.
They actually released two version of the CD-ROM, the first was a drawer type that sat under the original Genesis and the second was a smaller, top loading CD-ROM that went with the re-designed Genesis. Amidst talk of newer 32-Bit system on the horizon Sega decided they need to think about the next generation. Instead of going with a completely new system they decided to make a 32-bit expansion called the 32X. Although have good specs gamers just didn’t want to adopt it with the Saturn and Playstation on the horizon. The 32X only had a handful of games so it would be easy to get a complete collection.
Overall this was a very good system (sans the expansions) and I still find myself playing some Herzog Zwei and Shining in the Darkness. A great system and one I am proud to have in my collection.
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