Tech Review: Sega RetroGen

I love my retro games. So much so that I like buying up all of these cool little retro gaming gadgets that have been released in recent years. It seems as companies have let the copyrights on video game consoles expire, opportunistic upstarts have been swooping in to build cooler machines to play that stock of retro games you've got sitting in the closet. These usually fall under one of two categories: An honest attempt to pay tribute to classic games, made by people that genuinely loved the games, or, a hastily thrown together cash grab that will probably break in a year or less. So, does the Sega RetroGen fall into the first or second category.

Probably the biggest problem at first glance is how cheap the RetroGen feels. Everything about it is cookie-cutter in design, and it is abundantly obvious that it wasn't created by a gamer. The directional pad and buttons look and feel like they are generic pieces made for whatever generic piece of tech needs to be made. The worst of them all is the directional pad. If you plan on playing a lot of action or fighting games with this, you'll likely have a problem with that in particular. It just doesn't feel very good and isn't super responsive, which can be a killer when it comes to certain games and genres.

Still, everything else works as advertised. The buttons might look pretty boring, but they work just fine. The screen is pretty crisp and more than big enough. Some people on the Amazon user reviews complained about the sound, but I really didn't have an issue with it. It might not sound perfect when compared to the actual Sega Genesis, but it's hardly anything I'd ever complain about. And the most important detail of all, every game of mine worked just fine, apart from plugging in a Sonic title into the top of Sonic & Knuckles (That didn't work for some strange reason).

It comes with some built-in games right on the system, but it's pretty safe to say you won't want to play those past just trying them out one time. The main draw is being able to play actual cartridges, including both PAL and NTSC games, in case you've got any Europe-only games you've been wanting to pick up.

It also charges from a mini-USB plug, so despite the fact that I've long since lost the charging cable it came with, I haven't had any problems finding a way to get it charged no matter where I am. Everyone has a camera or phone charger that uses mini-USB, and once it's all charged it gets quite a bit of battery life. My only frustration comes from the fact that once it starts to die, things just stop working. Most handheld systems tell you in some way that their battery is low, but the RetroGen just starts going on the fritz. Sometimes this leaves you unable to even move your character, which is pretty harsh when it comes to an RPG or strategy game that you'd want to actually save before you turn it off.

The biggest pro of all, though, is the price. I picked one up for a scant twenty bones when GoGamer.com had it on sale, but there are several sellers on Amazon that have it for around $30 on a regular basis. At that price it is easily worth it, provided you already have a sizable collection of Genesis games.