Putting on your rose-tinted specs, most gamers should remember the Sega Mega Drive. With controllers like a fat boomerang and a bizarre volume control toggle on the console itself, the 16-bit marvel pioneered several blinding games franchises that are still being made today; Worms, Micro Machines, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Bomberman, and, of course, Sonic the Hedgehog. The blue-haired, red-sneakered rascal spun his way onto the MegaDrive in 1991 and became the brand image for Sega for years after.

Featuring a plethora of levels with multiple routes and secrets, combined with good old-fashioned platform gameplay, great (for the time) graphics and cheesy music, Sonic was a game that blew everything else out of the water. For those who fancy a stroll down memory lane, or maybe a spin-roll (it’ll all come back to you!), Sonic Mega Collection Plus is just the ticket!

Playing Sonic again felt just as great as it did when I fired it up all those years ago, everything just feels right about it! The gameplay is still fast, and it was fun remembering where all the hidden rings were, and some of the sections were still tougher than some modern platformers I’ve played. On a lesser note, the hideously camp Red Baron-wannabe nemesis, Dr. Robotnik seems to have lost a little of his evil-ness in the translation-every boss battle seemed to be as laughable as his fiery moustache, especially compared to the difficulty of the main stages. Sonic 2 and 3 I played less in my childhood (I was poor y’see?), and they seemed like they were trying to live up to the original, which never happened. Nonetheless, they’re both still pretty good time-fillers after you’ve played the main games.