Sega Mega Drive 2 Black Console (PAL)

Who can put into words how awesome this console was in its day, much of my childhood was spent playing a Mega Drive II and now I can share all this with my daughter, whilst the consoles of today may be a world of amazing 3D graphics, small children often find it difficult to get to grips with the often overwhelming and extremely complex control systems of todays games (not to mention the in game tasks!). This overly complicated nature and difficulty often makes playing games with your younger children overly frustrating for you and them!

So take a trip back to the early 90s and grab an early Sega! They are cheap, the games are cheap and it will keep your younger kids (and you) entertained for hours! Oh and cartridges unlike CDs are much more durable!

Mega Drives are so cheap these days, it's difficult not to shell out a few pounds to get that nostalgia back.

For many years, I played the games I loved on an emulator (Kega Fusion) but I found that it got a little ... boring. I missed putting the cartridge in, turning the Mega Drive on, turning it back off, blowing in the cartridge and then turning it back on again. And then seeing "Produced By Or Under License From Sega Enterprises, LTD"

The second I saw that screen I was away with the kid in me running through Sonic 2, 3 and even attempting to play some of the golf games that came with the console I bought (they sucked, just so you know).

But the reason I bought another Mega Drive (irrelevant, but I'll say anyway that the reason I didn't have one in the first place was I lent it, and its Mega CD add-on to a friend and I have yet to see it again) was two-fold.

I was learning to solder and after searching the web somewhat, there are a variety of modifications that you can do to a Mega Drive. The two that I did were an "RCA" mod, whereby you fit composite video and left/right audio to the back of the console. The second thing I did was replace the power LED with a colour changing one, which does look extremely cool.

I ended up buying two systems. One, that was bid on and won, came with a variety of games, and the second one was just the console only. The latter is the one I ended up using because just generally it was in a better shape. The one that was won with the bid I have since given to my nieces along with a few games.

Easy to use console bringing back my youth! Plug and play... it's that easy and the games are available in abundance.

This console was revolutionary at the time it was released. It gave us graphics and sound capabilities we have never seen before. The library of games is massive: Sonic, Mortal Kombat, Streets Of Rage, Golden Axe - tons and tons of masterpiece pieces of gaming history. Not only every collector, every gamer must own this console. Because it's perfect.

Sadly these consoles have the famous power adapter problem (the solder comes lose) which is not a problem if your like me and have a soldering iron :), overall I would recommend but if you are buying a faulty mega-drive 2 you'll probably need a soldering iron!