Sega Megadrive/Genesis Special

Known as the Megadrive in Japan and Europe, and the Genesis in North America, this was Sega‘s fourth generation home video games console and it was launched in 1988 in Japan (1989 in North America and 1990 in Europe).

The Megadrive/Genesis is a 16-bit console with a built-in slot for cartridges, which is how most games were played on it. It had backwards compatibility with its predecessor, the Sega Master System, and it also had a variety of important add-ons released for it, including the Sega CD and the 32X.

The unit came with two standard, three-button pads, then later (after Street Fighter II came out on the Megadrive) six button pads (like the one picture below) became more widespread.

The Megadrive sold more than 30 millions units worldwide, until it was discontinued by Sega in 1997 (although it was still being sold and supported by Majesco Entertainment until 1999).

Sega‘s console has a huge library of superb games and many are still being re-released to this day. So here’s our tribute to Sega‘s classic machine with a week of nothing but Megadrive games.

Here’s a full list of what was published:

Desert Strike
Jungle Strike
Urban Strike
Gunstar Heroes
Road Rash 3
The Immortal
Mega Bomberman
MUSHA
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
Herzog Zwei
Flashback
Pier Solar and the Great Architects
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Toejam & Earl
Cosmic Spacehead
Phantasy Star III