A week or so ago at a garage sale of sorts (leftovers that went on a craiglist listing), I bought a couple of Apple //e computers.  On the floor of the guy’s garage I spotted a box that had a bunch of junk in it.  I offered to buy it all from him.  The box contained these few gems in it:

• A “Zoomer” — a third party flight-stick/yoke for the NES

• A Sega Master System with two controllers, the zapper and the AC power adapter. (The SMS was dead though)

• Two Sega Sports Pad controllers for the SMS (trackball controllers).

• An NES Advantage–the 1st party joystick controller for the NES.

• And a couple of spare NES controllers (in rough shape).

The great thing is that I got all of it for $5.  The bad thing is that the Sega Master System is completely dead.  I’m not able to revive it.  I think that the Z-80 on board must be completely wiped.  It powers up but it doesn’t ‘post’ so to speak.  What turned out to be an awesome deal was the aforementioned Sega Master System Sports Pads.  Since the SMS’s controller interface is the same as the Genesis (and the Atari 2600 incidentally) I wondered if they would work with any games on the Sega Genesis.

I tested the sports controller out on Arcade Classics the Genesis cart that has Centipede, Missile Command and Pong available for the Genesis. There are two modes for each game. “Classic” and “Sega Versions”. It worked. However, that cart has to be one of the worst Genesis games in my collection. It was coded by a couple of yahoos who couldn’t even make Missile Command as good as the Atari 2600 version. I’d get it out for the party but I’m almost embarrassed it’s in my collection now. And the “Sega” versions of the classics are terrible. In Missile Command the changes is nothing more than the exact same code with sprite changes for the cities and flying objects. In Centipede? They added grass to the background making the game near impossible to look at. Worst classic port EVER. I’d rate all three of the ports on that cartridge right up there with E.T. for the Atari 2600, Superman for the N64 and Shreddin’ for the NES –abysmal at best.

But all is not lost! In West Virginia this week, I picked up Marble Madness for the Genesis. Not only is the port of the classic true to the arcade–but the Sega Sports Pad trackball works perfectly with the game! Using the trackball to navigate on the menus was a bit difficult but the game play is what is important. In my opinion, it is as close to the arcade as possible on a home console. What’s even better is that I have TWO of the Sega Sports Pads which will allow for two simultaneous players–just like the arcade! Of particular interest to me, I’m really exited to see what Zoyx thinks of this since he’s our resident Marble Madness champion.  I will certainly bring a complete setup for Marble Madness on the genesis when the Retro Party rolls around in October.  I think everyone will have a good time.  I may even use some industrial velcro to stick the controllers down on the play surface so they don’t move around when you’re trying to use them.