Genesis was Sega's shining moment. Nobody thought anybody could top the "Big N" (Nintendo), but thanks to a game called "Mortal Kombat", the Genesis was suddenly wanted more than Nintendo's SNES. See, the reason is that Nintendo's "game quality policy" (I call it censorship) prohibited images like blood and graphic violence (read "Sub-Zero ripping out Johnny Cage's spine"), so MK on the SNES was censored (instead of blood, there was sweat, and the fatalities were toned down to the point they resembled the "Friendship" moves from MK2). Well, on the Genesis, thanks to the "DULLARD" code (hit down, up, left, left, A, right, down at the title screen of the Genesis version) you could play MK with the blood and real fatalities. However, there was more to Genesis than Mortal Kombat. Sonic The Hedgehog 1 and Sonic 2 are two of my most favorite titles. Streets Of Rage was considered one of the best side scrolling beat 'em up games ever (Streets Of Rage 2 is even better with awesome graphics), but what makes the Genesis shine IMHO is the Phantasy Star series, one of my most favorite RPG series (Final Fantasy being my most fave...long live Squaresoft). And Sega put some of their late 80s arcade games on Genesis, and they rocked (Shinobi, Altered Beast, Outrun, Golden Axe...they all ruled). The only drawbacks to the Genesis are the limited color pallate (both total and onscreen...it had a color pallate of 512 colors and could only display 64 colors at a time) and its sound chip and sound memory (SNES outdid the Genesis in both colors and sound), but Genesis games could have outstanding music (Yu Hasuko <sp> composed the absolutely fabulous music for the Streets Of Rage series...the music from the first Streets Of Rage game is so funky it might make you wanna get down with your bad self).