The Retirement of the Sega Genesis

I purchased a Playstation 3 Move last week. This signaled the end of a 19-year run of the Sega Genesis being my premiere gaming system (I did briefly have the original Playstation, but never played it to the extent that I did the Genesis). The Genesis has followed me everywhere from when I was a child through college to now even in my yuppie years.

I received the Sega Genesis as a birthday gift from my family. It was a big surprise. I grew up normally not getting what I wanted for gifts, and when I did, I certainly felt guilty for receiving anything. After yearning for a Nintendo for years, it felt great to finally get one of the main systems on the market.

I started racking up games. I found myself going to our local Video Game Exchange often just to test out games on their screens and end up buying or trading games in. I remember that the Video Game Exchange had a sticker system and the color of the sticker matched what the price was for it. If I remember, the blue sticker was the most expensive. I never bought anything with a blue sticker on it.

Over the years, I collected a bunch of games and continued playing them. It got to the point where my friends found it hilarious that I even owned a Genesis. I went with Golak to a flea market in Columbus to buy games. Fellow comedian and friend Matthew Horn bought me a copy of WWF Royal Rumble for one of my birthdays. It had no manual with it, so I still have no idea how to pin an opponent.

For all the guilt I may have felt for having money spent on me for the system or for games, let's look at the cold, hard facts. Sega built a great system. My system is still going strong after 19 years. There's never been a situation where I needed to repair it or there was some type of major malfunction like the disc issues I've heard of with Sony products. I can still blow into a cartridge when needed, shove it into the Genesis, and it works just fine once you see those beautiful words: “PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE BY SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD.”

In honor of the changing of the guard of gaming systems in my apartment, I spent my Friday night before going to bed playing Tecmo World Cup Soccer. I chose to try to win the World Cup with the good ole' U.S.A. What is hilarious about playing a game from 1990 is that the “Save” feature didn't exist. If you decided to play the World Cup, you were plunking down over an hour of your time to play every single game on your march to the cup. That's what I did on Friday night. As the U.S., I dismantled my opponents, outscoring them 24-7 on my way to the World Cup. I dismissed Brazil twice and held off a tough match in the Quarterfinals vs. Italy. It was like nothing had changed. I still have the Genesis playing ability that I did as a kid. Also, in a funny moment representative of 1990, your honor for winning the World Cup was a song playing while listing the final scores of all your games, and then you got to read the credits for the game. These days, there is a huge celebration on the screen or a trophy presentation or codes get unlocked for you. In the early days, the great reward was to know the people who created the game.

I love the Genesis. It still sits in my apartment ready to be played, and I have every belief it can last yet another 19 years. In honor of the Genesis, here's the victory song, “Sutakora Sassa!” from my favorite video game of all-time, Golden Axe.