Sega Megadrive - what did I miss

 Back in my uni days, I moved away from my family who lived in Alice Springs. I moved to Adelaide by myself in 1994 to study and get my IT degree. 

I had an old second hand 386 PC my father organised for me to use. It was not the Amiga 2000 we had in Alice - which I wanted to keep.

With only money from a work experience job I did over the summer in Alice Springs before moving to Adelaide, money was very tight.

I missed my Amiga computer but there was no way to afford one, starting from over AUD$1200 at the time just for the A1200 system with no peripherals. 

I found out at that time about the number of Amiga titles that had been ported to the Sega Megadrive console.

The Megadrive was very cheap ($150) in comparison to the Amiga 1200/4000 for sale at the time in Australia. I decided to buy one, and a few Amiga games that were also on the Megadrive.

Ultimately later on I got a job to support myself while studying. I bought my Amiga 1200/030 system, and my Megadrive was given to my youngest brother to enjoy.

I was reflecting on this recently, and realised that there were a lot of exclusive game titles for the MegaDrive that I never got to try, some games I rented but never owned, and some newer homebrew titles and demo scene titles I also had never seen.

So I decided to buy a Sega Megadrive again! Luckily, these systems are inexpensive to buy, as so many of them were made - they are not rare, even in 2025.

The unit I bought was a stock Sega Megadrive II system, with AV output and two 6 buttons Sega branded controllers.

One of the gamepads seems to be for fighting games. Can't imagine I will get much use out of it though - I am not really into fighting games.

I also got 12 games included - ironically the system and games cost me AUD$150, the same as I paid back in 1994 for the system on it's own!

I remembered playing Desert Strike and Sonic 2 on the original system, so I was glad to get these straight away. There were a few games included I had never played before.

I chuckled a bit as I recall the Atari desperate patent lawsuits over the joystick ports used on the Megadrive...I often wonder would Commodore have survived these lawsuits? We'll never know.

So, I decided that I wanted to focus on getting games that were either exclusive, or not straight Amiga ports. I don't need to play essentially the same game on it.

I remember browsing Virgin Megastore back in 1994 in Adelaide, looking at the impressive new titles on the Megadrive that I couldn't afford. One of those games was Sub-Terrania. So logically, that was one of the first games I decided to buy.

The game is much harder than I remember it - I guess I am getting old. The graphics don't wow me the same way they did in 1994, but the game holds up well still in 2025.

I remember going to the video store (remember those?) to rent Megadrive games to play, since I couldn't afford to buy them.

I rented Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II and Virtua Racing quite often. Virtua Racing was an amazing technical achievement on the Sega Megadrive. 

Neither game was released on the Amiga, so it is good to be able to enjoy them in 2025 on my new Megadrive.

Perhaps some people may wonder why I didn't get the "tower of power" setup. For those who don't know, the Megadrive had a CD expansion, a Master System converter, and a 32X expansion released in its lifetime.

The quality of the CD titles was low, and much like the Amiga CD32 consisted mainly of ports from the main system, with audio tracks or FMV sequences added - shovelware basically.

Very few titles took full advantaged of the CD storage, and it was a slow drive to load. 

The 32X is more interesting, being a cartridge based expansion adding more capabilities to the Megadrive, allowing games like Doom and better version of Virtua Racing to be released on it, but the prices for the unit and it's rare games in 2025 is insane.

 I decided to keep it simple and focus on what I was interested in - the games I missed out on, and the newer homebrew and demo scene.

Unlike collectors, I buy the games to PLAY. I don't buy them to sit on a shelf. I see no point in it.

I bought the titles I was interested in on cartridge that sold for a reasonable price. I had fun with that, and managed to get a lot of interesting games for the Megadrive:

Outrun 2019? Never heard of it before. Double clutch, Pagemaster, Dynamite Headdy and Flicky too. Never had Sonic 3D, Rolling Thunder 2, or any pinball titles either - now fixed!

I was glad to try out Earthworm Jim on the Megadrive finally - never owned it before - I rented it once back in the day. I hooked up the Megadrive temporarily to the Checkmate monitor to try it out on it - it looks great!

Personally I wish I had one more Checkmate screen, as this screen is needed for my Sony ES setup I covered in a previous post here. It would be perfect for connection to all the retro consoles and remake consoles I have in this area that currently share a HDMI screen with a selector. 

Sadly I had to return it there after testing it out with the Megadrive.

I researched and found some interesting newer homebrew titles for the Megadrive too - a number of them have gotten physical releases, like The Cursed Knight:

The packaging is very professionally done in the Megadrive style, and comes with a colour instruction manual and cartridge:

The game is good fun too, and worth trying out:

For running demo scene and homebrew titles without a physical cartridge release, I would obviously need an Everdrive. 

Everdrive is a special cartridge for the Megadrive that enables you to store the complete Megadrive collection on a MicroSD-Card inside the cartridge, and select and launch them from a menu.

I opted to buy the Everdrive Pro, as it supports running all region games, plus MegaCD and Master system titles via FPGA inside the cartridge. Note that it doesn't play 32X games without the 32X unit.

The Everdrive Pro means I didn't need to go crazy tracking down extremely rare and expensive titles. 

The menu looks the same as the Everdrive unit I used on my PC Engine.

As mentioned, having all the software on a single microSD-Card is just awesome - there are collections on archive.org if you go have a search...

You can also save games to the MicroSD, use cheats and customise settings per game.

Sonic 2 on Everdrive. Loving it. No more cartridge swaps.

I could also add a number of the demo scene titles released over the years for the Megadrive and enjoy them too:

Exploring the scene was fun - music for the Megadrive is not a patch on the Amiga, but graphically the scene artists have done a great job - Here is some screenshots from Titan's demo called Overdrive:

I have found it fun to explore the Megadrive scene again in 2025. I now have a setup to enjoy the best of the titles for the platform, and no longer feel I missed out on that era.

I found out you can even play Amiga music files (modules) on the Megadrive, thanks to the MDMOD player.

I hope this brief look at the Sega Megadrive in 2025 is interesting for you. This was an article I had on hold for quite a long time with everything that has happened in the past two months. I am glad to complete it finally and publish it!

I have a few more posts that have been on the shelf I hope to finish soon also. Thanks for your patience!

I also plan to do some more mucking around with my Amiga systems soon, so keep an eye out for another post then.

Playdate handheld in 2025

 This year I have been catching up on some new release systems I didn't know about until recently!

Today I wanted to take a look at the Playdate, a very interesting portable handheld system from a company called Panic. It has a greyscale screen, and a unique crank that can be used to control the system.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect when I ordered it, but have been very surprised - this is a fun system and really challenges the traditional gaming paradigm with the crank enabling some great games. It also has some interesting utilities and applications to experiment with too. More on these later.

I also grabbed the optional case cover, which is curiously purple in colour. It works great with the bright yellow colour of the Play Date system itself.

The back of the box I got for the Playdate proclaims "A very fun handheld":

I was really surprised by the very small size of the system - it is tiny compared to a Gameboy, Analogue Pocket, Sega Game Gear or Atari Lynx!

A USB-C cable is included to charge the system, which has the usual modern non-replaceable rechargeable battery. I get why this is the modern way, but it does put a definitely use-by date on the system, when the battery dies or starts expanding inside the case...

 

Gripes about the non-replaceable battery aside, the unit looks wonderful. The engineering of the Play Date was done by Teenage Engineering (who also made the amazing OP-1 that I also have). 

As an aside, you can see the OP-1 in action via Red Means Recording if you are interesting to see that amazing machine in action - I have so much to learn to use it at his level - he made a music album with it!

The Teenage Engineering design influence is very clear in the design of the Playdate too.

This system is very solidly built. The crank is metal and rotates and tucks away into the chassis when not in use. 

 

The handle of the crank is plastic, and yellow like the rest of the handheld chassis.

The metal grill is where the speaker is - A button to access the menu of the system is above it:

The top of the system has a power on/wake button with a small power light:

At the bottom of the system is the headphone jack and USB-C cable for charging.

The back of the system just has the Playdate logo and the PDU-Y-01 model number.

The usual controller and A and B buttons are used along with the crank to use the system:

As mentioned, I got the purple cover, which looks great on the Playdate - it uses magnets to attach to the body, and fits snugly.

With the lid closed, it protects the screen well for travelling:

After charging it up, I turned it on:

The first thing that got my attention is that the screen is not backlit.

It is like the original Gameboy in that respect, which supposedly gives it more battery life, but personally I haven't seen that - the unit runs out of juice surprisingly quickly, even in standby mode.

It means that you need a good light source to read the screen, and this limits where you can use it - you won't be playing it in a dimly lit room.

I walked through the setup, which connects the Playdate to WiFi:

Having connected to the internet, the Playdate then asks me to register the device to continue.

Essentially, all purchases of games (and initial season 1 of games included) have to be associated to an online account at play.date website.

With that registration completed, I could proceed:

Surprise surprise - firmware updates were needed...

I applied the system update and then set the system date/time:

I then completed the initial setup wizard:

The graphics and animations one the handheld look fantastic - I was impressed!

As a new machine, you get the first season of games included for free. Each month you get more titles to try out - all gift wrapped and ready to open up!

The games are all new, and never heard of any of them before. This makes a refreshing change from the endless remakes of the same tired boring games, Gran Turisnmo 7, Street fighter 6, GTA V. Seriously, can we have some original games?

Luckily with the Playdate, we get quite a few unique games alongside the copies of popular games - casual birder, duck game anyone?

From the top right menu button I can visit the Catalog, which is the online store to purchase additional titles:

The catalog can be navigated with the crank or the controller pad - it is divided into different genres - I have no idea why other e-stores (yes Nintendo I am looking at you) don't do this. 

From the status screen you can see the current games and applications installed on the Playdate, and any new games you have not yet downloaded onto the Playdate.

The Playdate has 4GB onboard storage, and you will need to buy a lot of games before this comes even close to full. Good thing, since it is not upgradable.

The Playdate is not limited to the catalog games and applications though. You can side load any released playdate games and applications on to the unit also. You can get them on places like itch.io from lots of small developers - most are free, some are paid. In all cases I found so far, the cost is not higher than $10 and generally less than $5 where it is a paid application or game.

This process has to be done from the play.date website, with the application/game uploaded to their website and then made available to download from the Playdate.

I believe it is also possible to load directly to the Playdate via USB-C, but I didn't do that. The upload method to the website means any updates are automatically applied to the installed applications on your Playdate, which I think is more convenient.

I got to work uploading and installing a number of titles - Duck game is where you control a duck collecting a small number of other ducks and navigating obstructions to reach the next level. 

Crank & Watch Octopus is a re-implementation of Octopus Game & Watch, using the crank to control the main character.

I also bought some games from the catalog on the playdate. You do need to register a credit card to your profile to enable purchases to be done from the playdate itself.

Zero Zero is kind of a densha de go train simulator.

Using the crank to control the train is very natural!

Have to admit - I enjoyed playing this:

You need to stop the train at the platform perfectly.

I also tried out the Octopus re-make, which worked amazingly well on the Playdate - I was very impressed. The crank is excellent for this game.

You can also get another game that allows you to use the crank to control a paper plane, and another that lets you do the cycling for a cycle game - slow down downhill, and increase cranking up hill. It feels so natural and is fun.

Next, I wanted to try out the multimedia capabilities of the Playdate - yes, you read that correctly! The Playdate (with the right applications installed) can play MP3 music files and some video files too.

I connected the Playdate to my Mac with USB-C cable and put it into disk mode. This gives me access to the file system from the Mac.

I can then load my music onto the 4GB storage. I didn't go crazy with that, since I wanted to make sure there is plenty of space for other applications and data.

I was impressed with this -  the Playdate can handle 3d gaming also, as well as video and mp3 playback - it is more powerful than the grayscale screen and simple controls suggests.

But with the right software, you can open up even more. Next I tried out Amigotracker, which is a re-implementation of an Amiga module tracker for the Playdate.

This allows me to load my favourite Amiga protracker music modules (via USB-C) onto the Playdate and enjoy them on the move.

I love the interface. The RAM disk icon contains the modules I loaded onto the Playdate via USB-C.

The Demo disk is the included modules to show off the capabilities of the tracker.

I mentioned earlier about being able to play videos on the Playdate. It seems kinda pointless with the greyscale screen, but I looked into it. 

Turns out there is a bit involved. You have to convert your original video file into two seperate files - an Mp3 file containing the audio, and a special formatted video file.

There is a online website to make the process of creating the videos easier, but I found the resulting video was jittery and not so great to watch - dropping way too many frames.

Probably I am doing something wrong with the settings or using too long videos to test with. 

To be honest this video playback is just a curiosity, as I am unlikely to actually use any videos on this unit. The file sizes are large and the point of doing it is mainly "because I can" rather than any useful reason to do it.

I have to say I am really happy with the Playdate - it has awakened some interesting new games in 2025, and the crank as a controller has meant some interesting new concepts in games can be achieved. 

Only thing I would change is the non-backlit screen, as it does limit where you can play it.

I look forward to trying out even more titles for the Playdate in 2025, and seeing what developers come up with to use next with the crank!