Welcome to the Sega Page. Here you’ll find reviews & tips for the Saturn & Dreamcast and eventually the Mega Drive. If you love Sega stuff, then this is the page to be.
If you’re having trouble with either console, have a peek in the Trouble pages, and you may find something that helps. Please feel free to ask me about trouble you’re having yourself, and I’ll try to find out what might be wrong. You can ask questions about the Mega Drive also.

Please remember too, that this is not officially related to Sega, and that the reviews I give are simply my opinions. Also in the Trouble pages, the repair methods I give may not be recommended by Sega, and may also void your warranty in certain instances.

      

Unless you’ve been living under a big boulder for all your life, it’s no secret that Sega have had their share of ups & downs over the years, especially in more recent times with the marketing muscle of Sony. But if you’ve looked into Sega gaming, you’ll know that it holds its own with the best in innovative titles and attention to gameplay quality. Sega’s consoles have always been a driving first step into new technology, offering new types of hardware and performance levels. Take a look at the following table to get a run down on Sega’s major products:

Master System
Sega’s juicy 8-bit cartridge based console. The original design offered more features than the redesigned version, including a card slot and reset button. These features were apparently removed for cost saving / cutting. There was also an adaptor designed so that you could play the M.S. games on your Game Gear. Although a rarer item, Sega also produced 3D glasses, which allowed you to play games with a 3D effect, a special rapid fire device, a steering kind of wheel, plus a light gun.
Not that much of a winner in America, but better received in Australia & Europe.
Game Gear
Sega once again got up Nintendo’s nose with a new portable console. 8-bit like the Master System, but superior with the total amount of colours available. Boasting a T.V. tuner & back lit colour screen, it was way better than Nintendo’s Game Boy, but suffered from quick battery power consumption, and being rather large. Still, I’d be very interested to hunt one of these down sometime, due to the fact that it was before I was into Sega stuff.
Mega Drive

Sega announced this excellent beast as the 1st true 16-bit gaming platform available. With the powerful “blast processing” that gave Sonic his top notch speed, and excellent game line up, this I feel was easily Sega’s most popular console.
The 1st Mega Drive offered a volume control and headphone socket, which were later removed in the sleeker looking 2nd version. There was also an add on adaptor for Master System games, which simply went between the game cartridge & the console.
Sega also released the excellent 6 button control pad, which was just what games like Mortal Kombat and the Street Fighter series needed.
Mega CD
While NEC had already released their CD based “Turbo CD” system, Sega was more successful with it’s Mega Drive add on. Featuring a huge leap in storage space over their cartridge systems, Sega games could now feature truckloads of FMV (, although of poor quailty) as well as bigger gaming environments, such as with the massive Sonic CD. Although a great step forward for Sega at the time, the Mega CD was rather expensive. 2 versions exist: One that sits under the Mega Drive with a tray loading drive, and one next to it with a flip top lid.
32X
Sega really shot themselves in the foot with this one. With barely any games, and a huge price tag, Sega had started to over do it with add on “consoles” for the Mega Drive. Hook this up with the Mega CD also, and you had one heck of a big gaming system that needed half the room on your shelf to fit it. Although it boasted 32768 colours, and could rival the 3DO in terms of polygon processing, it’s shortened life span meant that it probably never really showed off what it could really accomplish. Blow up a balloon and let it fly off round round the room to get an idea of what the 32Xs success sounded like. Hmmm… It did have Chaotix though, and that’s a good thing. ;-)
Saturn

When Sega heard of Sony’s specs on the up coming PlayStation, they went back to the drawing board to ensure they had a more superior console. While it is techinically true, the Saturn got off to a bit of a slow start due to it’s tricky dicky hardware configuration. In time though programmers got to better grips with it, and the pros of the gaming companies, produced amazing results, with fantastic looking titles such as Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Steep Slope Sliders and Sonic R.
Featuring full colour visuals, multiple CD format support, such as Photo CD, Video CD and CD + EG, an excellent audio CD player, and the ability to deliver polygons faster than any console of its time, this is perhaps what would have been the better alternative to the 32X and Mega CD combo, that is if the technology had been cheaper to make at the time.
The Saturn also featured the interesting twin stick controller for Virtual On, and the rather bizarre Densha De Go! train controller (made by Taito). Other peripherals include a 6 player adaptor, mouse & Mission Stick, as well as the NiGHTS analogue pad.
Dreamcast
Sega pulled out all the stops to make sure this console was a top notch product, and they did a job that was right on the money. Being the 1st “128 bit” console to hit the market, (although it’s really 32 bit,) and with a sensational graphics processor, the Dreamcast could out perform nearly every arcade machine that there ever was. Sega’s decision to go with the Power VR as the graphics processor was a very wise choice over that of the 3Dfx, as it allowed for much bigger textures, supported texture compression, full scene anti aliasing and could deliver polygons at over 7 times the speed of the Saturn. The Dreamcast is also the 1st console to have an inbuilt modem, and provided many new controllers never seen before, such as the maraccas, fishing rod and microphone. Although exclusive to Sega, the new GD-ROM format disc was created also. At the time DVD playing functionality was too expensive, so a format the same size as a CD that could hold 1GB was created instead.

Are you a top Sega fan? Even a more passionate Sega fan than I am? Won’t buy any other brand consoles? Maybe you’re looking for a replacement cartridge, or you want to pick up an older console, ’cos ya hardcore. Whatever the case, here’s a list of places where you can pick up what you’re looking for Sega wise. From Alex Kidd to Chu Chu Rocket. Master System to Dreamcast, this is where you’ll find what you need!

Telegames — this UK site has truckloads of Sega games & more.
 New Age Consoles — Another joint from England, with a couple of Dreamcast games.
Console Passion — Here’s a great source for Master System, Mega Drive, Mega CD, 32X & Saturn games.
Raven Games — A good spot for Dreamcast & Saturn games.
The GOAT Store LLC — You can find lots of cool Sega related stuff here, and if you don’t have any problem with using American NTSC stuff, then you might wanna have a peek.

Go back to the Games Menu.