Sega Genesis: 16 bits of Sonic speed
Pros:
Price, fun, Sonic titles
Cons:
Lack of composite, only 2 controller ports
The Bottom Line:
I recommend this to people who like gaming.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
To eliminate having to write a beginning, (I guess this qualifies as a beginning) I'm going to just start with the specs, and then actually tell about it.
Specs:
Year it came out in America: 1989
Generation: 4th
Processor: Motorola 68000
Possible colors: 512
Processor speed: 7.67 megahertz
Sound Processor: Zilog Z80
Now on to the real feature, the review. As said up in the specs, the Sega Genesis was released in 1989, as a main competitor to the Nintendo Entertainment System, and later competitor to the Super NES. The SNES ended up beating the Genesis, and the loss marked the beginning of the end for Sega. Anyway, the Genesis was still a great system and a great system as well.
It's somewhat difficult to tell about how the Genesis look, because there are three different body styles. My personal recommendation is not to get the 3rd incarnation, as it lacks some of the functionality of the 1st and 2nd ones. The 1st one looks somewhat like an old VCR player, except way thinner. The 2nd one looks a little bit like the PSOne, except black, a bit larger, and instead of being wider, it's longer. The 3rd one is just really, unnecessarily small. The cartridges are smaller then SNES cartridges, and also colored black.
When you pick up the controller, you may notice the lack of buttons (D-pad, Action buttons A, B, and C, and Start) . For games I've played, this does not seem to be a big problem, but there also exists a 6 button controller for games that have more options. (such as Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure) The controller is quite comfortable to hold, more so then the SNES controller.
Something that is annoying about the console is the lack of composite inputs. Your options are RCA, and another one that I don't know what it is. Fortunately, for power, it isn't one of those more special plugs. (Yes SNES, I know who you are) Also, the controller input is the same as the Atari 2600, so you can actually use the Atari 2600 controllers on the Genesis, but I don't recommend it, because there are problems with the controllers. It's much better to use the Genesis controllers on the 2600.
The games on the Genesis are encased in black cartridges (They sure liked black, just like the... I dunno, they must have just liked the color black) that seem to be fairly durable. Lots of the Genesis titles are comprised of sports and sidescrollers. Some games that I recommend are Sonic 1, 2, 3, Sonic 3D Blast (3D Blast is actually a good game, even though some people don't like it), amd Vectorman. Vectorman is basically a futuristic sidescrolling shooter.
In conclusion, the Sega Genesis is a good system. They may have made some bad desicions (Sega CD, Sega 32X) but it's inexpensive, it has some good games, and it's just a good system for gamers to have.
