Mega Drive Tetris

Posted by Sega Dude on July 28, 2011
Posted in: Community, Games, Genesis (North America), Mega Drive (Japanese). Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 8 Comments

Once long ago I owned a copy of Tetris for the Mega Drive. The knock-off bootleg version. Then I traded it away long before I knew how rare it was. Well, that is, how rare the actual licensed version is. Knowing that I’d never end up with the licensed copy I really wanted to try and get my bootleg version back. Not so easy. Those few times it showed up on ebay it was listed for hundreds of dollars. Sometimes for just the cart.

Then recently I saw it listed for $350. I don’t know why but I made an offer for $100. Not nothing but far from the asking price. I got a counter offer asking $150. That was down a lot but I really honestly felt like I was at my limit. I replied explaining that $100 was all I wanted to do, including shipping. I got another reply stating that if it wasn’t sold after the up coming weekend that my offer of $100 would be accepted. I was pretty excited. At the same time I still feel a little crazy for spending $100 but this one game will be a place holder in my collection for the single rarest game for the Genesis/Mega Drive. I’m pretty sure I’m really happy with this 😛

A BIG Danke Schön to my fellow collector auf  Deutschland!

This is my new Bootleg Mega Drive Tetris. Not mint, but pretty good:

This is what Sega’s officially licensed copy of Tetris was going to look like for the Japanese Mega Drive. Sega ended up losing the license for Tetris on consoles so they had to destroy the copies they made.
The assumption is that some were spared and got out into the wild. Which is why this version of Tetris is so rare and why someone on ebay got a little crazy in the head. Signed Licensed Sega Mega Drive Tetris:

Wildly over priced eBay auction for Tetris:

While searching for pictures of the license version I came across some really well made custom case covers and labels that I might print up some time. I believe the person who posted them also created them. The following is a link for many more excellent covers:  http://www.box.net/shared/5qi65zpjbp

Tetris Case Cover Sleeve and cartridge lable:

With all of the recent hype for the originally licensed Tetris it really nailed home the idea that I’ll never have it. Which for me adds some extra value to my bootleg copy. For fun I even considered trying to Photoshop up a copy that looks like the licensed version but despite how simple the Tetris cover looks it’s really not that easy to reproduce (at least for me).

And from a poster that I enjoy following here’s a youtube video detailing the ‘what’s what’ of the licensed Mega Drive Tetris.

Mega Drive Tetris by Mega Drive Memories

Hardcore – Cancelled Mega Drive Game

Posted by Sega Dude on July 27, 2011
Posted in: Community. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

It never really dawned on me that there were games very close to completion but never saw the light of day close to the Mega Drive’s end. By chance I stumbled onto this clip of such a game. This is a clip of a never released game called Hardcore and it looks very good.


What’s interesting is in 2010 two people responsible for Hardcore actually demoed the game. If you watch the video you’ll hear the details and it sounds like they are trying to get the licencing rights to release this game. I really doubt this means it will appear as a Mega Drive cartridge  (which would be awesome) but maybe we will still get to play this game some day.

Adam you suck!

Posted by Sega Dude on July 26, 2011
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

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After writing my last post it reminded me of another time I got Sega bush-whacked. Back in Junior High I borrowed Global Defense from a school mate. I was curious about the games two player mode where one player controls the flight of the satellite and the other fires the guns. It sounded cool… but the game was not very good and I returned it. A day or so later Adam came back to me and said Global Defense was broken and he wanted me to pay him $50 for it. It sucked but I believed him when he said I returned it broken. I had no idea how I might have wrecked the game.

So I paid (mom paid) and I kept the game. A year or so later I was curious and thought maybe I could fix it. So I opened it up and what I found really surprised me. The circuit board was burnt. There was a circle burned into the PCB and one of the traces was cut. It looked as if it was done with a lighter held to it. So it clicked at that moment and I realized that Adam had destroyed it because he also didn’t like the game. What a dick.

Anyways, it was done and I wasn’t going to the same school anymore… I had to let it go. But I was still curious about trying to fix it. I took my dad’s soldering iron and some copper (he always had stuff like this about) and I cut a thin strip long enough to stretch  across the burn mark and reconnect the path from where it looked like it use to be. This bit of copper was a straight line and about an inch long. It took a while because I didn’t know how to solder but I got it done. I closed up the cart and tried it out. I almost fell over when it started working! It was a great feeling bring that thing back from the grave. However, I still don’t like the game. I considered checking to see if I still have this copy but I counted and I have 15 copies of Global Defense and I’m not yet ready to open them all 🙂

Pick-Ups – It wont fit…

Posted by Sega Dude on July 26, 2011
Posted in: Collection New Additions, Games, Mega Drive (Japanese). Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I loved Fantasy Zone for the Master System. Back in the day I found it really hard but I loved it. And that is one of the reasons why I’m so pleased to add Super Fantasy Zone to the collection. An other reason is because it’s one of those few games that comes in a really cool small box. Not only do these Sunsoft games have the smallest cases but they also have the largest cartridges. This Super Fantasy zone cost me $34 (plus shipping). It’s a title that I was willing to pay extra for; beyond my typical $20 per game goal.
What I find funny is that I know exactly what these cases look like yet I didn’t notice that my Batman is in a normal cartridge and not the big fat one like Super Fantasy Zone. For a time I wondered if this one was a knock-off. But I’ve seen been told that it was common for some releases to receive changes for a particular region. This particular Batman is likely regionalized for Asia market and has a different plastic cartridge compared to the Japanese release.

Normally Japanese Mega Drive games will not fit in a Genesis. The Japanese Mega Drive carts are a little bigger and Sunsoft games are a lot bigger. Even though I had my Genesis modded to play Japanese Mega Drive games it is still not wide enough for these monster Sunsoft carts. I still have my original modded Genesis and I’m wondering how I use to play Batman because this Super Fantasy Zone cart does not fit at all and I remember having the same sized cart for my Batman. Anyways, speaking of modding my Genesis… when I first had this done I was told by a store called Video Connections that they had to carve the edges of the slot on the Genesis to make it a bit wider. This part was true. They also told me that  they had to do “a little technical work here and there”.  That part was a complete lie. So they took my $30 and off I went. It was many years later before I figured this out.

Three Nice Additions

Posted by Sega Dude on July 24, 2011
Posted in: Collection New Additions, Games, Genesis (North America), Mega Drive (Japanese). Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment
I received some excellent new addition recently.
Golden Axe has always been one of the better games for the Genesis and it’s one that I never got tired of playing. I’ve read that Golden Axe 3 was not considered as good as Golden Axe 1 or 2 but for me I really wanted to complete the set. This copy that I now have is like new and even though I can’t play it on my North American Genesis I’m still really pleased to have it. This is one of those games that I was willing to pay a bit more, $42 including shipping and from watching it for a while I don’t think I could have done it for much less and in such great condition.
Having never played Alien Storm I was interested in it because I heard of it being compared to Golden Axe quite often. So even though a sci-fi theme it still has three unique characters to chose from and had the same style game play. The manual is a little bent in spots but over all the condition is very good. This one’s cost was much more normal and set me back $12 with shipping.
I really like Ys for the Sega Master and I wanted to add the Genesis version (Y’s III) to the collection. The game play doesn’t look that great but I’ll give a go some day and decide then. I ended up buying this from an ebay seller who did not ship to Canada. He was willing to cancel the order but I left bad for over looking the shipping details and wasting some of his time. I offered to pay for additional shipping cost to seal this deal. In the end I ended up paying much more than I originally wanted to. $29 including $12 in shipping costs.

Mega Drive Golden Axe 3

Sega Genesis Alien Storm

Sega Genesis Ys III

From the Wild

Posted by Sega Dude on July 23, 2011
Posted in: Games, Genesis (North America). Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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It’s not often that I find Genesis games out in the wild but when I do they are always a great deal.
These two game from a local video game store (Gamerama) that I check in on from time to time.


Both are missing their manual’s but at $5 they are still worth while. The Batman is in good enough shape for the collection but the Street Fighter 2 has some marks/wrinkles on the sleeve along the top. I may just play it or trade it away. (assuming I get off my butt and post my games for trade)