SEGA CD Summer (2022)

 

SEGA CD Summer by Matt Adams

When I ordered this I thought I was ordering the same sort of "collection/anthology" historical book on the Mega Drive/Genesis add-on, as I had got one a few months ago on the 32X. To my surprise this a semi-autobiographical novel.

The tone is that of a slice-of-life of, I have to imagine, a typical north-american 12 year old kid during the Summer of 1994. The big premise is the trials and tribulations he has to go through to be able to afford the SEGA CD, particularly in becoming a paperboy and how he deals with his customers but also the relationship with his mom & dad, his brother and his friends. There's also a lot of summer baseball action that, quite frankly, goes a bit over my head as a sport I am not very familiar with.

The book is typo-free (always a plus in these self-published works) but there's otherwise not a lot of depth to the story. The big takeaways are really the nostalgia of what seems now a weird time and, I guess, the relationship he builds with his family and some off-the-wall episodes with his friends, family and neighbours.

There is some insight into videogame situation in that particular summer: the SEGA CD is out but the 32X and Saturn are incoming, and so is the Sony Playstation. The Atari Jaguar and the 3DO get mentions. Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat are the hit games. This is perhaps the most relatable part of the book as I also lived through 1994 as a Mega Drive playing kid. Some parts are somewhat jarring in the way that the author or the protagonist relates things as if he were in the present, with the knowledge of all that happened to SEGA, Sony, Nintendo, etc in the following 25 years.

There's also a huge bit on what Star Wars was in those times. The trilogy was already over 10-15 years old and the new ones still a few years away. Kids were fascinated by the films but had never watched them in the cinema. However, VHS tapes are now affordable. I have never been a big Star Wars fan but I remember that time the series was quite mythical. There weren't that many toys of it around as there are today, videogames on it were not that great but everytime it would show up on the regular channels on a saturday matinee or something, it was quite an event. Remarkably, there's also quite a bit of time dedicated to those summer movies, with Ace Ventura leading the pack. Surprisingly, no cartoons.

Finally, while we tend to think about the SEGA CD these days as a failed product that however, had a few remarkable games like Sonic CD, Afterburner, Snatcher, Lunar, Robo Aleste or Popful Mail. However, the announcement at the time made more sense than it does today in hindsight and, what the kids really wanted to play was not obscure japanese games but the same sports games, Star Wars and fighting games.
In the end this ended up being a light and pleasant read that I'm sure a lot of gamers who lived through these times might relate to. It's not Dickens or Melville nor I think does it intend to, but it doesn't offend and provides a vivid window into a forgotten time.