The rise of the console. Well it was for me anyways. I hadn't played any video games outside of the arcades for a couple of years when '88 came around. A friend of mine had this mysterious computer called a 'Sega'. I was amazed when I played it. I remember 2 of the games he had were Wonder Boy and R-Type and as far as I was concerned this was arcade gaming in the home.

I promptly nagged my mum for a Sega Master System and a 1 single game. It had to be just the one game because the price of a new cart was a whopping £30! I mean 30 quid back in 88/89, I wouldn't pay thirty notes today for a brand new PSP or DS game.

The marketing boys for Sega really didn't have a clue... who drew these a 6 year old?

In Britain at least the SMS was king and had very little competition. The 8-bit computer era was coming to an end, no one wanted an Atari 7800 and no one had even heard of the NES.

Unbeknown to me at the time was Nintendos attempt at monopoly by threatening all the major 3rd party game makers with death and torture. Sega had to rely on converting there own coin-ops. Out Run, After Burner, Space Harrier and Wonder Boy all graced Segas 8-bit with graphics and sound other consoles couldn't live with.

A closer look at some of my fave games later.