A couple of months ago I was fortunate enough to add a Sega
Master System II to my console collection. It wasn’t a console I was
particularly looking to buy but it just happened to be too good a price to turn
it down. As soon as I bought it I set about the standard eBay hunt of looking
for all the great games I remember from my childhood. The next few minutes saw
Alex Kidd in Shinobi World, Asterix, Castle of Illusion and a couple of Sonic
games all bought to kick-start my collection.
Whilst my initial euphoria was still alive and kicking I took to
Twitter to tweet to all and sundry about my new purchases and how much I
couldn’t way to play them! I wasn’t really quite sure why I was so excited. I’ve
bought games and consoles before and been pretty pleased with myself but this
time I was on the verge of becoming giddy with 8-bit power. Eventually it
struck me though; I’d never actually owned a Master System before!
Delving into the deepest recesses of my memories and dusting them
off made me realise that I’d only ever owned a Master System converter for the
Mega Drive. I’d never had that joy of booting up Alex Kidd and indulging in the
title music. I’d never felt the need to defend the aesthetics of the original
Master System versus the mark II model. I’d never had to fight my corner for
Sonic vs. Mario when NES owners came a knocking. Basically I was an 8-bit fraud!
It was a strange twist of fate that saw the Master System
converter play a role in my childhood gaming experience. A family friend
mistakenly bought Transbot for us as a gift, and my parents in their wisdom
deciding that forking out for a converter was much preferable to coming clean
with their friends and admitting that they had advised them to buy the wrong
game! What an experience Transbot would turn out to be. As a child reared on
16-bit graphics and stereo sound, playing Transbot was like being poked in the
eye with a rusty fork and then forced to listen to electronica underwater. I
threw my controller down in disgust and vowed I wouldn’t touch it again. But I
did. Again and again and again if I’m honest. It’s not even a particularly good
game, but it has a certain innocence and charm that just kept me coming back
for one last go.
This experience opened my eyes somewhat, and I started to
acquire more games, borrowing from friends where I could and picking up some of
the “shovel-ware” that the Master System had in abundance (to think some people
thought this was a new term fashioned for the huge levels of dross churned out
on the Wii!). Great games like Lucky Dime Caper and Psycho Fox spent many happy
hours being “converted” through my 16-bit beast into the quirky, happy-go-lucky
stylings of an 8-bit adventure. The converter remained a mystery to me; at the
time I couldn’t comprehend what kind of voodoo
magic allowed a game from one system to be played on another! The mystique
surrounding the converter was certainly one of the factors that convinced me to
give the Master System a shot.
So here I am over 20 years later, still booting up Alex Kidd and
losing myself in its fun simple graphics and cheeky upbeat music. And after all
this time I feel like I’ve come full circle and really learnt one of the most
valuable lessons of all; I still really suck at rock paper scissors!
