Classics like Outrun have suffered unnecessary facelifts
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Players who first dipped their toe into the world of gaming in the 8 and 16bit era would be forgiven for riding a wave of nostalgia with this collection of hits from the golden age lovingly slapped onto one disc.
Yet a wave of nausea is more likely after playing Sega's Classics Collection for the PlayStation 2. Simply culling the classics that fed your Megadrive and Master System seems a simple enough money-spinner to task Sega with.
Yet while gaming glitterati such as Outrun, Golden Axe, Space Harrier, Columns, Fantasy Zone, Monaco GP, Virtua Racing and Bonanza Bros are all here in name, they have suffered such unnecessary facelifts as to be barely recognisable.
In most cases the 2D graphics and levels you know and love have been dressed in a shabby 3D coat and crippled with clunky control systems.
The resulting halfway house between pixel-perfect original and bona-fide remake will have you fetching the Megadrive from the attic.
Space Harrier is stripped of its manic charm, Outrun is a mere shadow of the sun-kissed arcade original, while Golden Axe is just plain sloppy.
Bad trip
The games that survive with their dignity intact are those that have been interfered with the least.
The games are hampered by clunky controls
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Hallucinogenic shooter Fantasy Zone can still raise a grin through its pastel haze.
Sega's 1990 answer to Tetris, Columns, is a passable enough puzzler, although the one area they should have changed - the infuriating music - remains in all its cacophonous glory.
Rather than the joypad greats that ushered in the turbulent early nineties, we have a less than rose-tinted collection that gives nostalgia a bad name.
When a simple collection of the originals would have sufficed, you have to ask yourself why?
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