By Ned Jordan

Your appreciation for Sonic's Ultimate Genesis collection will depend a bit on your age, and even then it depends on how forgiving a sense of nostalgia you have. I grew up playing Genesis games - I can remember the night I first hooked up my new console and beat Altered Beast. I can remember spending long Saturday afternoon gaming sessions with my brother playing Golden Axe and Gain Ground. I can remember the first time I popped in Sonic the Hedgehog and marveled at its amazing graphics and lightning-fast gameplay. Unfortunately, I can also remember popping Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection into my Xbox 360, firing up a game of Golden Axe, and instantly realizing that gaming has come a very long way since the 80s.

If anything, this collection of 40 Genesis games along with nine SEGA Master System games is certainly extensive. It also serves as another testament to how far gaming has come in the past twenty years now that almost fifty games that once came on individual cartridges can now fit on a single disc - and be sold for less than a single one of those games cost when it was first released. I'm sure one of the things that you're most curious about is just which games made it onto the disc and which of your personal favorites are among them, so here's what you get:

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
Alien Storm
Alien Syndrome
Altered Beast
Altered Beast
Beyond Oasis
Bonanza Bros.
Columns
Comix Zone
Congo Bongo
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Dynamite Headdy
Ecco the Dolphin
Ecco: The Tides of Time
E-SWAT
Fantasy Zone
Fatal Labyrinth
Flicky
Gain Ground
Golden Axe
Golden Axe II
Golden Axe III
Golden Axe Warrior
Kid Chameleon
Phantasy Star
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
Ristar
Shining Force
Shining Force 2
Shining in the Darkness
Shinobi
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic 3
Sonic 3D Blast
Sonic Spinball
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Space Harrier
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage 2
Streets of Rage 3
Super Thunder Blade
Vectorman
Vectorman 2
Zaxxon

The games are all accessible from an easy-to-use menu screen that allows you to sort the titles in a number of ways, including by a rating hat you can assign to each game. A small set of the games are initially locked, but you can unlock them by completing tasks in other games such as completing the first level of Streets of Rage with each of the three available characters. Each of these challenges is also tied to an Achievement, so you'll also pump up your Gamer Score as you have fun unlocking the remaining game titles as well as bonus interviews with some of the games' original designers and similar bonus content. Each game also has its own "museum" which gives you a look at the original box art as well as some facts and trivia about each title.

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