by S. Graveson

Created on: August 10, 2009

For those of a certain age long before PlayStations and X boxes there was only 2 consoles that would dominate the market. Back in the early 1990s it was the turn of the Sega Mega Drive\Genesis and the Snes, Sonic v Mario. The battle world wide to see who would dominate would be the battle that started the video game revolution and planted the seeds for the following generations and the brilliant period we're in now.

In 1989 Sega released the Mega Drive (also called the Genesis in America) and one of the first games available was Columns which had been a DOS game in 1989 before Sega bought the rights to it the following year and then let lose with it on retail soon after.

For those that can remember the times where school playgrounds were split into the two camps with fans of the plumber trying to explain how a fat Italian was better than a blue hedgehog...idiot's I tell you, back in the day it was all Sonic. On that subject, its only since the n64 that this changed and Mario took over as the premier platform character in video games as far I myself is concerned.

Well it wasnt just the mascots that were fighting for their console but also the puzzle games. Nintendos Gameboy held the proud title of the #1 puzzler with the addictive Tetris, but that wasn't going to stop Sega from trying their own version.

They came out with the game in the early 90s on multiple formats including the Genesis, the Master System and the Game gear to try and replicate the magic of the Gameboy classic. The idea was incredibly similar with you controlling blocks as the fell from the top of the screen trying to prevent the screen from filling up. Though the difference were in the way you stopped it and the blocks coming down. Those who have played tetris will remember the blocks were differing shapes of 4 single blocks, which were to be used to make a straight line from one side to other to gain points and get rid of the blocks and empty the screen im the process. With columns it was colours that were used in a connect three type of game, where a straight of 3 of the same colour caused the blocks to vanish. The lines could be vertical, horizontal and diagonal, with the blocks of 3 bits dropping from the top of the screen being manipulated like the Tetris shapes and moved horizontally as they fall to the rest of the jewels on the screen.

Sega also made available a game called Dr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine to compete with Tetris. You may be wondering why this has been mentioned, but

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