Happy birthday Sonic! A month long celebration. Part 1

Sonic's birthday is this month so get ready for Sonic Stuff!!!!

A Sonic the Hedgehog themed game console? I want that! At least that's what I told my girlfriend I wanted for a Christmas present. Wouldn't you know it? She went back and purchased it later, without my knowledge. Merry Christmas to me! I love it because it's Sega but how well does this megadrive emulator by AT games really work?

At first glance you can see the slight  resemblance to Sonic. It definitely takes a note of shape and design from Sonic's famous profile and there's a nifty Sonic emblem on the top. That's a pretty good start.

But then I noticed a few things that were... less than desirable. For one thing, it only works with A/V cables which is fine but it only supports mono sound. No stereo, which is where the Genesis really shines. This can be overlooked though as the original Genesis took a lot of tinkering to even get it to play in stereo.

This is strange... where is my power adapter?  What's that? Not included? Oh it takes batteries. Four AA batteries to be exact. Ok, this isn't cool but I still want to give it a go.

How are the controllers? At least it includes two right? Yes but I would rather use almost any other controller available... ever! Wireless.. cool. Wait... IR technology.. Noooooo! These things work in the same way your tv remote works, which is to say, not good enough for a gaming controller. Not even close. They have "motion sensing" abilities for a few badly made tennis games but when you move it's just recreating a button press. Which makes it useless for motion games. Also these things just dont feel comfortable in the hand. There is a hole on the top that I imagine was intended for accessories like a golf club or tennis racket but I've never been able to find them.

I can at least strap the thing to my hand so I can wear it about town like a true Sega gangsta!

So lets pop the batteries in this bad boy and fire it up! It starts with a menu of Sega classics. A good selection too. It includes some top favorites such as Sonic 1, 2 and Golden Axe.The major problem here is when you try to play a game. They look alright but the sound is terrible when compared to the original Genesis. Sound wise, the emulation is far from perfect. The games are still very playable though and it includes a few games missing from my library which is good. The SD card reader also has the option of loading Rom files downloaded from the internet which is probably the best feature.

All in all its something to pick up for Sega collectors and sonic fans only. Other than that I would pass on this. Unless it's found cheap or almost free. Still, I'm glad to have another piece of Sega console history.

Check out the video review I did a while back!