Hello everyone, got something lovely for you to see here!
This came up on a gaming forum from a seller in Austria, and I jumped on it. They don’t come round often, not in Europe, and certainly not for the price.
MegaDrive.me
Victor Wondermega RG-M2
A new arrival at MD.me towers, is this boxed and barely used Victor Wondermega.
Plucked from Ebay, this arrived in better condition than we could have hoped for, and while it’s not a Sega Wondermega model 1 version, we’re pleased to have taken ownership of this bit of Mega Drive history.
MD001 Posters
Well, it only took eleven months, but Dan and I are really pleased with the reception that the posters have been getting. The first lots went out at the beginning of last week, and we’ve eagerly been watching for opinions when the real thing is in peoples hands.
Our friend Scott Cross, who did all the photography you’ve seen of the posters, also put together a video of our trip to the screen printers. Just a little more background info about the process that some of you may find interesting.
Thanks to everyone who’s bought a poster so far.
[youtube_sc url=Z39sAH2pUHQ width=590]
Posters update
We’re so close to being able to put the posters up for sale.
We have them printed, we’ve got an online shop ready to rock, we’ve got Paypal set up, we just need poster tubes!
You’ll know as soon as we’re ready!
Hands on making stuff
Way back in November of 2011, when Ian and I rocked up to Replay in our MegaDrive.me t-shirts, we got a lot of attention from them. Loads of people commented on how cool they were, and could they buy one, were we going to do anything else?
My friend and co-worker Dan Clarke and I initially decided on a poster, and set out getting costs for silkscreen printing, quality papers and customised tubes for delivery. If we were going to do this, we wanted to do it right and make it as high quality as possible. After a few friends helped get costs and were suggesting using papers from manufacturers, we lost a bit of momentum and the ideas stalled.
Last month, GF Smith announced a new range of Japanese papers. Jane from GF Smith dropped by the studio with samples and this totally re-ignited our desire to get these posters out there.
We’d made contact with a Mark from one69a, a silkscreen printer who had a real love for his craft, and was very interested in the challenges our design would present. Quick visit to his studio, explained what we wanted to achieve and started the ball rolling!
The posters will be available in the next few weeks, but until then, here’s some photos of the printing process. Enjoy!
Pics by Scott Cross
#newarrivals
We’ve been a little slack in updating the news, but we’re still here and playing Mega Drive.
A couple of new arrivals to tell you about, Battle Mania Daijingo and Virtua Fighter on the 32X, and a bunch of still sealed games from Steve Bailey.
Early Sonic scans
As promised, Ian has scanned the Sonic pics from his copy of BEEP! Mega Drive.
I think the guys on the SonicRetro.org boards will be happy, as it proves a few things they’ve been speculating on, and have got right. Oh, and can you validate a few requests please!
I’ve edited the colour of the scans ever so slightly, bringing the levels in and adding a slight unsharp mask, however, there are areas of the scans out of focus.
Without further ado, here’s the pics… Continue reading
The Rise and Fall of Sega Enterprises
One of the megadrive.me crew, Damien McFerran, has written an excellent article for Eurogamer about Sega’s rise to power in the 16-Bit era, and their subsequent fall from grace.
“The stars began to align with the 1989 launch of the Mega Drive – rechristened Genesis – in North America. After a encouraging start, the new console started to chip away at Nintendo’s previously unassailable lead. A savvy combination of faithful arcade conversions and licensed sports titles helped establish a prestigious user-base, but it took a certain blue hedgehog to really hammer home Sega’s message.”
Well worth a read for all Sega fans.
Early Sonic screenshots
In one of Ian’s videos, he talks about a Japanese magazine called BEEP! that he’d won on ebay, and how it has early screenshots of Sonic The Hedgehog within. We’ve had a lot of people contacting us on Twitter, in the video comments and on forums asking to see the screenshots.
Ian’s taken a few photos and emailed them over, so until he gets near a scanner with BEEP!, you’ll have to make do with these snaps! Continue reading
Coming soon…
Scanlines on an HDTV
Scanlines. If you hear someone talking about scanlines when discussing video games, you know they’re a dork. I talk about scanlines a lot. Mostly with @damienmcferran and @michaelheald.
What’s the deal then? Well, when we played video games on CRT televisions, there would be faint horizontal lines between the rows of pixels. Kinda didn’t notice back in the day, but when you play an old Mega Drive through a modern HDTV, you will instantly see something is missing. Continue reading
New Arrivals
A couple of new scans added to the Mega Drive section. Gley Lancer, Phantasy Star MD, Star Cruiser, Grand Slam Tennis and World of Illusion. The first three from Steve Bailey at Japanese Retro Video Games, the other two from Console Passion during Replay Expo. There’s also been another order put in with Mike at Jap-sai.com for a few more choice games!
For those of you who don’t know, all the cover images used on this site are scanned from our own personal collection of games. We haven’t used any scans found around the ‘net.
Yes, we are aware that this means it’ll take ages to complete the full set, if at all!
Replay come down…
Seven days have passed since Replay Expo in Blackpool, and instead of wandering round retro heaven talking about video games with loads of people, I’ve consoled myself with a lovely boxed Mega Jet and the latest issue of Retro Gamer (good feature on The Revenge of Shinobi!).
Replay was great, Ian and I were there, with our 16-bit shirts on, and had a great time. Plenty of people asked about the shirts and the site, which was fantastic, so if you were one of the people we met over the two days, thank you for saying hello!
We met so many friends that we chat to on twitter, so it was a real pleasure to meet up with the RetroCollect gang, including Katsu and Cauterize, who’d worked really hard setting up competitions and creating golden joystick trophies to give out to the winners.
A major upside of the event was that Ian and I finally got to play a sit down co-op on Golden Axe for the first time ever, having not played it together before. A downside was too much kicking each other and trying to do the game without using magic meant we didn’t finish it! Better luck next year!
A fantastic weekend, a bunch of new Mega Drive games acquired from Console Passion – scans coming soon – and reviews to slowly follow… see you all there again next year.
Pic by @jamieoretro
Announcing MegaDrive.me
A few words from Ian on how MegaDrive.me came about being…
[youtube_sc url=elN_QrUZ_P4]
An Interview With Treasure – 1993
After writing the Gunstar Heroes review, I remembered I had an old scan from Game Fan magazine – September 1993, and an interview with Treasure. It’s interesting from the point of view of what drives the company, and how they’ve continued to produce original pieces of work for the last 18 years.
I’ve typed up the interview – and corrected the terrible grammar – for your reading pleasure…
Begins–
Many of you will soon find out how incredible Treasure is, when you play Gunstar Heroes. This dedicated new company shows a commitment to quality unlike any other we have known. What Game Fan wants to its readers is like what Treasure wants to be to game players. They are committed to doing what they believe you want, not what the big corporations want, which is why they left Konami. I am sure that after you read this interview you will firmly believe that there is at least one company with YOUR best interests in mind, and that the future for Sega owners is extremely bright! Continue reading
“Why don’t we have something like this?”
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!