Saturday afternoon, and I’m digging for some info on the PC Engine version of Batman. I have a very useful PCE site bookmarked – pcengine.co.uk – and started to browse the other games I have on the PCE, Parasol Stars, R-Type and more when I thought “I wish there was something like this for the Mega Drive…”

Cue energy saving lightbulb slowly warming up to give off the faint suggestion of an idea.

Something Ian had said to me started to chime in too. He’d corrected an article about the Mega Drive on wikipedia, only to see his changes reverted to the previous incorrect information. “What’s the point of having it if it’s wrong?”, he said.

Don’t get me wrong, existing sites like Sega Retro are fantastic for their information, and have a wealth of material, but in general their layout, organisation and design leave a lot to be desired.

For me, the Japanese box art, which destroyed the European and American releases every time, was one of the reasons I fell in love with the system. Even now, Ian, Damien and myself are buying games to own the box art! So let’s make a big deal about the artwork. Let’s show the games by cover.

I reckoned between myself, Ian and a third Mega Drive collecting maniac, Damien McFerran, we could probably create a pretty good site about Mega Drive games and systems. Not just played on emulators either, as we’re all collectors of retro MD gear.

A quick email to the pair of them and I was unsurprised they were busting to get involved. A quick start with some layouts really got the anticipation rising, but this won’t be a quick weekend job.

So please, bear with us as the site takes shape. It’ll be rough around the edges for the first few months, as just getting all the information about 422 games in was hard enough work, even between three of us!

Really looking forward to working on this project. Let’s hope we all feel the same way in six months!