sega cd!!!!! Keep in mind throughout this article that I’ve never written a review of anything before. Of course, if you’ve read any other page of this website, you probably only got here by accident in a feeble attempt to escape Treegnome.weebly.com. Or maybe it was the cleverly misleading “<Back” button on my homepage, which really just takes you here. Well I thought it was funny. Anyway, on with the review.
The Sega CD was (according to my limited knowledge) the best system of its time. But for some reason, Sega released it as an add-on to a dated system in the dying years of it's console generation and charged the price of a new Playstation 2. Smart. And thus, the Sega CD committed marketing suicide. So now that I have about 5 of its games, you could say I have roughly over ¼ of the entire Sega CD library. The games I’ve been privileged to play include- Hey wow! I just checked my secret stash and found that I actually have 12 Sega CD games! That means I only need like four more and I’ll have them all. I guess I only thought I had 5 because that’s about how many of mine are even remotely worth playing. I’d also like to point out that for you, my loyal fans, I will descend into the depths of Sega CD hell by playing every one of those terrible, crappy-ass games again, extensively, in order to write an accurate review. Ungrateful a-holes. Huh? Oh, nothing, I said nothing at all. Here’s a list of my games in order from my favorite to my least likely to play again, ever: NBA Jam, Sega Classics, AH3 Thunderstrike, Sol-Feace, Frankenstein, Hook, Microcosm, Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1, Sewer Shark, Jeopardy, Joe Montana’`s NFL Football, Kris Kross: Make My Video, Hot Hits Music Sampler, Rock Paintings Soundscapes, and Dracula. I got my used Sega CD/Genesis and all 12 games plus 15 Sega Genesis games from the same person for about $50. It might have been a rip-off, too, if it weren’t for the Genesis games. Some Sega CD owners were lucky enough to get the kind that opens on the top of the machine and lays next to the Genesis like a loving spouse. I wasn’t so fortunate. I got the kind that stacks underneath the Genesis, making them like two angry siblings, pissed that they have to share bunk beds, each secretly plotting the demise of the other. Although it seemed harmless enough at first, the pain was already about to start. The first thing I noticed when I went to play a game was the lack of an eject button. I later found this to be more than slightly inconvenient. I started to panic, and after violating every crevice of the machine in a desperate search for the eject button, I consulted my users manual. The first thing that caught my eye was the large and not very reassuring EPILEPSY WARNING, which seemed to be the main focus of the first page. Most of the manual was page after page of how to hook up more things to the Sega CD than anyone would ever want to. And then there was the always amusing “troubleshooting” section. Here is my favorite excerpt:
Well eff. There’s my problem. Seriously, though, if you don’t know enough to turn on the TV and video game system before you feel you have to consult your user’s manual, WHY THE EFF ARE YOU EVEN PLAYING VIDEO GAMES? Go put your diapers and drool bib back on and play with your shape blocks, moron. And why would Sega think toddlers are reading their user’s manual anyway? Maybe the troubleshooting was meant for people so pessimistic, they just assumed it wouldn’t work before they even attempted it.
Eventually, I found out that the reset button of the Sega Genesis is also the eject button. This is annoying for two reasons. The first is that there is no reset button for the Sega CD, only on, off and eject. The second is that it only works when it wants to. I don’t know how advanced AI was back when the Sega CD was made, but a machine has to be at least somewhat conscious to have a will of it’s own. No matter how many times you press the reset button, it just chooses random times to start working. You don’t tell it what to do. It tells you what it wants and makes you like it. It beats you into submission until, in a sense, it’s the Sega CD that’s playing you. |
start here!sewer sharksol-feacehooksherlock holmessega classicsmicrocosmfrankensteindraculaAll images ©Sega
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