Thanks to 1,500 backers who donated more than double the goal to the Kickstarter campaign, fans of the old school will find themselves with quite the lexicon to add to their personal library. Its campaign successful, fans can now look forward to the release of "SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works."
Described as an "unparalleled treasury of production artwork, interviews, development sketches, and hardware manufacturing plans," the book's release coincides with the 25th anniversary of the console's release. Besides original and never before seen artwork for Genesis classics like Vectorman, Comix Zone, ToeJam & Earl, Bare Knuckle / Streets of Rage, Sonic the Hedgehog (of course), Golden Axe, and more. There's also over 20 exclusive interviews with original SEGA team members and inventors of some of the console's most beloved games, such as:
- Greg Johnson, Co-Creator of ToeJam & Earl
- Peter Morawiec, Creator of Comix Zone
- Rich Karpp, Developer of the Vectorman series
- Michael Latham, Producer of Eternal Champions
- Ed Annunziata, Creator of Ecco the Dolphin
Besides the interviews and purdy pictures, there's also hardware manufacturing plans for some of you old school tech enthusiasts. And let's be clear about this. "SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works" isn't some paltry, puny little book. At 300 pages, it's a lovely bit of history for anyone who had or ever enjoyed playing a Sega Genesis. It's also being edited by Keith Stuart, a tech journalist with over 20 years in the biz, writing for Edge, Official PlayStation Magazine, PC Gamer, and the Guardian.
For you younger gamers, I'm sure this sort of thing more than likely has little appeal, if any. But for anyone who grew up in the late 90's and early 90's, watching SEGA slowly rise to become one of Nintendo's direct competitors, it's a nice way to reflect on arguably the greatest time in the company's history. Just like how fans today scream at each other in bitter diatribes, shouting the pros and cons of consoles, so too did we do the same. But instead of messageboards, our arguments were usually limited to school cafeterias and living rooms. Instead of Sony and Microsoft, it was Sega and Nintendo, and anyone who mistakenly bought a Dreamcast and watched the company go from a major heavyweight in the industry before being relegated to a third-party developer knows how that battle ended.
Though the monetary goal reached has been reached by the time, the book itself is still in development. We'll keep you posted when Read Only Memory provides a date when you can expect it. In the mean time, check out some of that never-before-seen artwork below.
