Radica Megadrive 6-In-1

Radica seriously wanted their Megadrive 6-In-1 unit to look the part. It comes as two permanently connected units, a control pad that bears a close resemblance to the original three button Megadrive pad (apart from the metallic blue plastic) and, between that and the television, a rather dinky little black box; this is the heart of the system and presumably what happens when a Megadrive II goes through the boil wash! The central unit can either be powered by four AA batteries or a 6 volt power input and the option to drive the thing off the mains is one selling point that a couple of other DTV manufacturers who could possibly pick up a few tips from.

Now it might just be me but I’ve always found some of the games chosen for these units somewhat bemusing. There are some real A list crowd pleasers such as the near to omnipresent Sonic The Hedgehog, hack and slash fest Golden Axe or the fabulous puzzler Puyo Puyo (represented here in it’s westernised and hedgehog-branded Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine guise) but the other three titles, virtual reality themed platformer Kid Chameleon, cutesey high-speed arcade collect ‘em up Flicky and re-animated corpse mutater Altered Beast, although reasonable games in their own right almost come across as filler next to the might of the ‘Hog.

Radica Megadrive - playing Sonic The Hedgehog

And since this is a single player rig, I can’t help thinking that, since both Golden Axe and Altered Beast are best played by two players and although Mean Bean Machine plays a good single player game it’s even better against another human, the unit could have done with a second pad or the titles chosen needed to be ones that worked better for a single player. At least one of the two battlers should have been held over for a later unit with two player support that could really do them justice (I’m thinking Golden Axe should have waited and, since they’re another major Sega milestone that plays better with two humans, that box could include at least some of the Streets Of Rage series) and that place on the menu reassigned to a shoot ‘em up for a little variety, something like the wonderful Eliminate Down, Thunderforce 3 or perhaps the base-belonging, Zig-moving blaster that is Zero Wing… at least that’d give the marketing people something to talk about even if it’s things like “somebody set up us the bomb!”

The control pad is a reasonable copy of the original although I must admit that it felt just a little cheap when I was using it, although only in the same way that the original did since the case moves around a little bit with prolonged use and, since the player’s fingers are on the seams where the upper and lower shells meet, that movement can be felt. The mini-Megadrive II itself is very robustly constructed and actually feels solid, so it doesn’t appear totally empty without the batteries in as is usually the case with these things. The hardware is an officially licensed M.O.A.C. arrangement and, whilst pretty close visually to the real deal I did notice the sound dropping out when the original hardware wouldn’t have had an issue with the music (which is already playing at the wrong tempo, presumably because the ROM image is the NTSC one) and sound effects in Sonic being a particularly noticeable example.

Radica Megadrive - about to play Altered Beast

But these things are meant to be cheap and cheerful nostalgia and yes, I’m aware that I’ll always be over-sensitive to the quirks and inaccuracies (significantly more so than the average audience for kit like this) so, although some of the titles aren’t in the pantheon of Megadrive gaming and the hardware isn’t an absolutely perfect simulation, the Radica Megadrive 6-In-1 is a good bet for wallowing in 16-bit memories. Sonic, Mean Bean Machine and Flicky are excellent games, Golden Axe and Altered Beast can still be enjoyed to a fair degree with a single player and Kid Chameleon is more than reasonable too so there’s almost something for every gamer and, since the unit itself costs under half the price of a single cartridge did a mere ten years back, the overall package is very attractive. And it’s a great way to kill a spare couple of hours here and there, just think of it as a Sonic The Hedgehog DTV with a couple of good bonus games thrown in and you can’t go wrong really!