MULTI-MEGA ARTICLE - February 1995
| People involved in the videogames business usually have a
very dodgy grasp of the idea of 'sexy'. Generally, when using the s-word
they'll either mean some indescribably sad PC strip poker variant or some deeply
gruesome flight-sim joystick with more buttons than a Beefeater's laundry basket,
either of which are - clearly - about as sexy as waking up with a sore head in a big
bucket of moose phlegm. However, locked away deep in the vaults of a very few collector
types, there lies a machine - sleek, subtle, ultra-compact, curvy, black and shiny - which
would raise an appreciative smile from even the haughtiest supermodel or Girlie TV
presenter. Implausibly it's from Sega (makers of the Saturn, the
next-generation's Ruby Wax to the Playstation's Zoe Ball), and it's called
the Multi-Mega. The Multi-Mega is a combination unit with a Mega Drive, Mega CD and portable audio CD player crammed into its tiny (200mm x 120mm) frame, and after utterly failing to shift the niche-market machine at a frankly optimistic £350, Sega have decided to let the rest of us in on the secret and clear out their warehouse at bargain-basement rates. You can now get your hands on a Multi-Mega for as little as £130, including all leads, a smart six-button joypad and - if you're lucky enough to get one from the right batch - even a game or two thrown in. Sega have pretty much given up on the Mega CD itself at pretty much the same time, so you can also find games at giveaway prices all over the place (the cheapest we've seen being Comet's nationwide stock clearance offering both Mega CD and Mega Drive games at a ridiculous three for £9.98), and build yourself an instant library for the price of a Saturn joypad. Only an inch or so longer than a bog-standard CD walkman (though it's also a tad chunkier), this is a stylish modern accessory for the discerning gamer-about-town. Mind you, given that an ordinary Mega Drive + Mega CD setup takes up more room than an average-sized passenger airliner, it does make you wonder what the hell was going on in the rest of all that space. |
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