10 SEGA Mega Drive Games That Deserve a 21st Century Overhaul

The video game industry has never been so busy, with established and indie developers not only churning out incredibly creative titles every month, but old classics being reimagined, too. Recent years have seen the return of Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Hitman, and we will soon be stepping back into the footsteps of Kratos and Cloud Strife.

For the older games – a.k.a. the “classics” - there's only so much a direct remake can achieve. 2D platforming, which was all the rage back in the 80s and 90s, has largely (although not entirely) been supplanted by modern 3D graphics engines, and the simple objective of moving from left to right, killing everything and it's mother along the way, now swapped out for open-world exploration and RPG skill trees.

However, as recent remasters such as Castle of Illusion and Monkey Island 1 & 2 have proven, there is still a lot of love for the oldies.

Locked away in our dusty attics lie some incredible games which, with a little tweaking of the original mechanics and some updated graphics, could easily return to the bestseller list today. SEGA were one of the titans of gaming back in the 1990s, so this list is going to look at 10 Mega Drive games that deserve a 21st century overhaul.

The original Terminator game on Sega Genesis was an action masterpiece that saw us take on the role of Kyle Reese. After taking on the terminators of the future (or present, I guess), Reese travels back in time and fights his way through 1980s LA to save Sarah Connor, all the while pursued by Arnie's T-800.

Translating this classic game into a direct action-adventure remake would be difficult. Reese was stronger than most of the Terminators in the game, absorbing bullets like a sponge.

Perhaps a modern update could start out with a high-octane action feel as we run towards the time machine of the future, armed with weapons capable of taking down Terminators with ease – but once we arrive back in the past, the game becomes one of a run-and-hide survival, similar to Alien: Isolation and Resident Evil 7. Ammo and guns are scarce, the police outnumber us, and all the way, a vicious, unfeeling killer stalks us, murdering anything that stands in its way.

Swapping between Kyle and Sarah would allow for a mix of gameplay while staying true to the original plot – and the overpowered abilities of a relentless Terminator will help us remember what made this classic villain so terrifying the first time around.