Shut up and Drive

At last, you can stop rambling on about those great old Sega games and start playing them again

£50 / stuff.tv/segaclassic Q For some gamers, the ’90s were the halcyon days – and the Sega Mega Drive was the console of the decade. Rub the nostalgia from your eyes, though: this reborn Mega Drive is no high-end piece of hardware. It feels plasticky and oddly hollow, and doesn’t even look like the original console. Still, it’s the games that really matter…

Q Among the 80 pre-installed titles, there are some true classics to get into. Sonic is the obvious choice, but there’s also a host of endless runners and fighters, from Ristar and Golden Axe to Columns and Streets of Rage.

Q Sixteen-bit graphics spread across a big screen make your eyes work hard, but it’s worth it for the button-bashing thrill of hearing that Sonic Ring ‘ping’ in your living room again. Sound quality is low, with soundtracks that feel as if they’ve been put through a distortion box, but this is genuine old-school gaming.

Q The Arcade Classic ships with a power adaptor and an AV cable – with one jack for the picture and one for mono audio – and all you have to do is plug them in. There’s no HDMI, so you’ll need to check your TV has an AV input.