Retro Gamer Collection Volume 6

The Mega Games Conundrum!

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So, I’ve just collected all the Mega Games Compilations! Good times… I mean, there’s six volumes – the first three volumes have three games each… The last three volumes have six games each… All you mathematicians will quickly realise that is a stunning 27 games! When I was a child my total collection of games was in the region of about seven – So this was a great way to get your hands on loads of games pretty cheaply!

Now, the idea of making volumes of complilation cartridges isn’t that big a deal right? Choose some games, put them on a cart, hey presto, easy-peasy… Well, it must be harder than it looks because Sega managed to make a royal fuck up when it comes to their compilations. Let me explain…

Ok, so the first three volumes aren’t too bad, apart from calling the first one ‘Mega Games I’. They clearly knew they were going to be making a set of these, so why not stick to Roman Numerals? Why suddenly jump to using numbers for 2 and 3? It gets worse though… It goes from being Mega Games 2 and 3, to Mega Games 6. Now, yeah, I know – it’s Mega Games 6 because there are six games later in the series. That’s fine. But by the time they get to the final volume they end up simply calling it ‘Mega 6 Vol 3’… What the fuck!? Inconsistency is the name of the game when it comes to everything mega related… I mean, in six simple releases they manage to design four different cover art styles. Why? Why have half the series as three game volumes and then suddenly jump to six games per cart? And finally, the biggest question of all… How can the games duplicate themselves so fucking badly?!

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Ok… So it’s not 27 games afterall… It’s not even close to that! Let’s take a closer look.

Mega Games I; Columns, Super Hang-On, World Cup Italia ’90.

Mega Games 2; The Revenge of Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe.

Mega Games 3; Alien Storm, Super Thunder Blade, Super Monaco GP

Retro Gamer Collection Volume 6 Release

So far, that’s a good set, damn good set of games indeed. I find it slightly unusual that in the first volume they choose a puzzle game and then two sports titles. They must have had some harsh feedback on that choice because when they get to Mega Games 2 they tighten their shit up and drop some gems… three top of the tree platformers, all with varying violent conotations… Beautiful. So I guess when it came to Mega Games 3, the boss man came back, and tore them a new arsehole for putting three fine games on a single cartridge. The average gamer would have become so engrossed by Mega Games 2, that no other games would have sold that month at all! (Well, that’s my humble opinion!). So what do they do? Tone it down again by the looks of things. Mega Games 3 is pretty run of the mill. Alien Storm makes it, and I know some people are into Super Thunder Blade, however, Super Monaco GP seems likes it’s just been tacked onto the end… Like, ”we need three games, what’s lying around?”. Anyway – the last three volumes… Hold onto your ass…

Mega Games 6; World Cup Italia ’90, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, The Revenge of Shinobi, Super Hang-On, Columns.

Hold on a minute??? This is familiar… Here’s the last two volumes before we begin to analyse this…

Mega Games 6 Vol. 2; World Cup Italia ’90, Alien Storm, Super Monaco, Super Thunderblade, Super Hang-On, Columns.

Retro Gamer Collection Volume 6

Mega 6 Vol. 3; Sega Soccer, Super Monaco GP, Columns, Revenge of Shinobi, Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage.

Retro Gamer Collection Volume 6 Release

Ok, so the last three volumes repeat themselves really badly… Really, really badly! And I know that the primary purpose of these games was to bundle with the consoles, but Jesus Christ… Seriously? SERIOUSLY? What I find even more ammusing is the fact that they’ve subtly changed the titles between volumes… Is that supposed to fool people? “Loose the ‘GP’ off that title mate, they’ll think it’s a completely different Super Monaco”… “No, no, don’t call this one ‘The’ Revenge of Shinobi… Just ‘Revenge of Shinobi’ will do”… “No, it’s not ‘Super Thunder Blade anymore asshole, it’s ‘Super Thunderblade’!” Good God!

So it turns out that over six cartridges there are a measly 11 games, total! They could have cut it down to four volumes of three games each, the last in the series then being; Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega Soccer and any other given Sega developed game… Lets say Gunstar Heroes! That would have been some cool shit. (Then again, Gunstar Heroes appears on the ‘Classic Collection’ compilation… We’ll save that for another day). This is how the series should have looked!

Retro Gamer Collection Volume 6 Wiki

Ok, so Sega Soccer is a misdemeanour. It has never been released separately, so I took the liberty of adding Ultimate Soccer to the collection instead… Afterall, this game was developed by Sega, and it’s a much better soccer game! Anyway, I’ll clear one last thing up to avoid loads of morons giving me pointless grief. The first three volumes don’t have bar codes, so we can assume these were bundled with the Megadrive console. Fair enough – accept – these three volumes work on their own! So, if you wanted the good volumes of the Mega Games set, you’s have to buy three consoles just to get them… That’s not value for money! On the other side of the coin, the last three volumes all do have barcodes… One can only assume then that these were in fact sold separately – the thing is though – if you have one of them, you wouldn’t buy any of the others!!! If they had released the first three volumes instead of the last three, they would have tripled their profit. So that ladies and gentlemen is why the Mega Games series is a piece of dog shit.

Good night.