Remember the sheer awesomeness of Sonic the Hedgehog? Remember how great the 6-button controller was? Remember Sega Visions magazine? I got my first glimpse into that 16-bit world one summer when my older cousin came to visit and brought along his shiny new Sega Genesis. All I knew at the time was that it wasn't a Nintendo, the only console I'd ever really known. The Sega Genesis was black and mysterious, almost as if it were intentionally designed to be in stark contrast with the pedestrian light gray of Nintendo. I had no concept of graphics, hardware, or these things called "bits." I just knew video games were fun to play. But when my cousin showed me those early Genesis games for the first time--games like Golden Axe and Alex Kidd--my world changed. These games looked like nothing I had ever seen before. I vividly remember the first time my cousin and I played Altered Beast. The characters looked real. The sound effects used real voices (POWER UP!). It blew my little 7-year-old mind. Suddenly my Nintendo games seemed boring and amateur.