There’s a fundamental difference between old games and old films. When a movie is generally considered a ‘classic’, you know you’re most likely in for something fairly special. Classic games tend to do rather less well and, and instead of being lovingly re-released in shiny DVD boxed sets, they get bunged onto a crappy CD-ROM with a load of other allegedly ‘classic’ games and heaped into supermarket bargain bins. The reason for this is that most video games, unlike wine, do not get better with age – they get worse.

OK, so maybe I’ve exaggerated a little - SEGA’s Mega Drive Collection isn’t quite as bad as you might expect.  In fact, there are actually a few titles on here that almost merit the cost of the disc on their own. Retro fans will be pleased to see the first two Sonic the Hedgehog games make it on here and, in contrast with the abysmal 2006 version, the gameplay still feels very fresh. The seminal Japanese role-playing games Phantasy Star II, III and IV are also featured, with relatively satisfying results. As for the rest, a whopping 28 games have been crammed onto the disc, which means that even if you only play each one for 15 minutes you’re still getting about 7 hours of entertainment, a fairly decent proposition for a budget release.

On the down side, a lot of the games featured here are too shallow by modern standards to cut it as home console releases. Having said that, in some cases the simple 16-bit gameplay more or less works as a quick, pick-up-and-play diversion and PSP owners are likely to get a lot more out of this compilation for the simple reason that they can take these games on the move.  In particular, the gentle platform action of Alex Kidd and the scrolling combat of Golden Axe work well as portable entertainment, even if they aren’t anywhere near as engaging as current equivalents like Psychonauts or Ninety Nine Nights.

So it’s not a complete disaster then, and there are some real classics to be found here. Sadly, the good stuff is surrounded by a huge amount of filler, and out of the 28 games featured, you’ll probably only play about 5 of them more than once. In theory that’s still a fairly decent amount of gameplay for your cash, but it’s disappointing that less than 20% of this compilation is even worth a second look.

To conclude, SEGA Mega Drive Collection is one of the better budget compilations around, and for PSP it has the added bonus that you can take the lot on the move with you. Unfortunately the PS2 version lacks this advantage, and as such you’re probably best off giving it a miss unless there’s something on there that you absolutely can’t live without.

SEGA Mega Drive Collection is out now for PSP and PS2, SRP £19.99