Take a moment to cast your mind back to the year 1991. TV broadcasts were flooded by shots of war and views from the ends of bombs as Operation Desert Storm began in Iraq. Atlases and globes throughout the world were rendered out of date over night as the Soviet Union broke up following President Gorbachev resignation. A porn revolution began with the launch of the World Wide Web and PC's received a power boost with the introduction of the Intel 486SX chipset. And who could forget Swede Carola winning the Eurovision Song Contest with "F'ngad av en stormvind" or fourteen students from Stanford University, California, leap-frogging 1,603.2 km in 244 hr 43 min? Well you probably never knew the last two, but you do now.

Most importantly however (for this review anyway), is that in the same month that Microsoft released MS-DOS 5.0, Sonic the Hedgehog was introduced to the world with instant success on Sega's Master System & Mega Drive consoles. Almost thirteen years ago the world got its first glance of a bright blue, red shoed, blindingly fast hedgehog that within a short period of time would become almost as recognisable as that other red shoed rodent, Mickey Mouse. Sleek and fast Sonic was Sega's answer to Nintendo's overweight, mushroom eating Italian plumber, Mario. Sonic's premise was addictively simple, using the minimum amount of fuss and buttons to run, roll, jump and spin through colourful levels as fast as possible, collecting rings and in the process, liberate fluffy critters from the evil Dr Robotnik.

It was fast, simple and highly addictive. Well before consoles had hard disk drives or even memory cards, the lack of save games made Sonic quite a challenge to complete in one sitting. Many a now mature gamer's childhood was eaten away by the Sonic series and Sega are hoping to cash-in on those childhood memories with the release of Sonic Mega Collection Plus (SMC+ from now on) on the Xbox console.

SMC+ consists of a total of 20 games from both the Sega Megadrive and Game Gear, not all of which are initially unlocked. The bulk of the package is the four original Sonic games Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, 3 and Sonic and Knuckles which include after the first game, the ability to play in a somewhat starved for resolution two-person split-screen mode. Other titles include, Sonic 3D Blast, which is a craptacular isometric viewed exercise in boredom and Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball which is not much better at holding your interest and is essentially a pinball game with Sonic on ball detail.

Unfortunately as far as retro games go, if the games sucked in their original versions, then they still suck now. One surprise inclusion is Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, that doesn't feature Sonic at all but is instead a rather enjoyable quasi-Tetris clone.

Other curious unlockable titles in the collection, include The Ooze, Comix Zone, Flicky and Ristar. Each have their own pros and cons, but Comix Zone is definitely the coolest and predates all recent releases with similar comic book stylistic devices.

To round off the package, Sega have included a selection of Sonic games originally released on the Sega Game Gear, a Sega hand held that never could match the popularity of its monochrome rival, Gameboy'Damn that fat Italian and his magic mushrooms! These games consist of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Chaos, Sonic Drift, Sonic Labyrinth, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and Sonic Blast. However nice it is for these games to be included, the fact still remains that when you try and blow up an 8-bit hand-held game onto a decent sized TV screen they just look blurry. Gameplay wise they are also very basic, even when compared to their 16-bit counterparts. I would expect many older gamers to spend no more than a few short minutes with any of these titles before becoming bored but there's a whole bunch of kids out there for who these games will be fresh and new. The lack of any Sonic games post the Game Gear, is a noticeable absence. The Sega CD didn't have a lot going for it other than Sonic, so inclusion of Sonic CD would have been nice and definitely more welcome than the Game Gear versions.

Game line-up aside, I was quite taken aback when I slid the disk into my Xbox and fired up the original Sonic the Hedgehog. As the first level loaded, the words 'Green Hill Zone' appeared before my eyes. It must had been a good ten or more years since the last time I had seen that 16-bit image and the memories just came flooding back from that point onwards. Sonic wasn't ever my favourite game, but I do have fond memories of investing countless hours of my childhood playing it and its sequels. Even the first time I finished the game (in one siting of course, as there were no save games back then) is still quite vividly burned in my memory. If you are like me and grew up with these games but sold, lost or threw out your old Sega console years ago, then you should experience similar feeling of nostalgia on playing your way through SMC+.

Sure the graphics are of an early nineteen nineties vintage, but the gameplay is still there and that's what hooked you in the first place right? Each game is perfectly emulated, both visually and aurally. The image doesn't quite fill your TV screen for some reason, but a click of the Right Thumbstick zooms in slightly for a better fit. Even the sounds from the correct pronunciation of 'Sega' on start-up, to the poker-machine style dings and chimes of gameplay are perfectly recreated for your listening pleasure.

One of the most impressive aspects of this package besides the games themselves is the inclusion of a substantial amount of extra material. Not only are scans of the original manuals for each game included but literally hundreds of scans of Sonic themed comics can also be found on the DVD. These scans can be viewed on your TV one at a time with the facility to zoom in to a readable distance and scroll around the page. It's not the easiest way to read anything, but is possible if you have the time, patience and desire to do so and I'm guessing that any massive Sonic nut would be salivating on their keyboard after reading that.

In addition to these scans, a collection of videos, storyboards and other assorted goodies are also included to help pass the time and to 'bone up' (as in the slang for 'study', not what the drooling freaks were thinking!) on all things Sonic. The inclusion of these extras will be loved by Sonic fans and it's amazing that alot of it was still available. There must be some glorious vault at Sega just stacked full of gaming history and this collection is a pretty decent attempt to share it with a new generation of gamers.