I want to recount the story for you here—I really do. The feeling of running down the stairs that morning, tearing into a tower of gifts balanced on one of the tall, pink chairs of our formal living room. I want to tell you about almost opening a small, rectangular box just two gifts into the unwrapping (one with an eerie resemblance to the size and shape of a Sega Genesis game box), before my parents recommended I work my way through the the pile in a different direction to save the pièce de résistance for last.

But to tell this story again, the pinnacle of my Christmas experience, one properly softened by a Vaseline-coated lens while simultaneously sparkling with double starburst filters, feels disingenuous.

You see, I wrote it all down on paper once before. I was 10, putting me in fifth grade. Still obsessed with my Genesis, this tale of Christmas morning 1992 (late adopter) would be the perfect narrative for the English portion of Mrs. Lustig's class. And I have little doubt that my adultish perspective—one that has difficulty tuning out today's culture for a time when kids only got gifts for big holidays, one that is so spoiled it can call in any toy at any time from any company—has clouded the importance of that Sega Genesis to me. I'll simply never recapture the unbridled love placed on paper via number 2 pencil with this clunky Macbook keyboard I'm typing on now. And an LCD does so little justice to childhood memories when compared to a piece of looseleaf, pulled without regard from a spiral notebook.

The Sega Genesis was my Red Ryder BB gun. It offered me the elation of its receipt, the disappointment of Tazmania and the eventual perspective that memories will forever be altered by the ones that follow. I'm not sure I'll ever relive a moment quite like ripping through paper to find, in complete shock, that I'd gotten exactly what I'd wanted that Christmas. But there's always next year.

The Retro-Gen (branded Sega, though we can't imagine Sega actually had anything to do with it) features a USB-rechargeable battery and comes pre-loaded with 20 "classic" games (we're not sure what they are, hence the quotes). It says it'll only play licensed ROMs, though who knows what that means; we'd imagine you can just load it up with whatever you've got. It doesn't look like it has an extra port for another controller, which would come in handy for multiplayer games using the handheld's TV-out, but you can't have everything, right? It's available for pre-order now, for a $50, $10 off the usual price. [Video Game Central via The Mirror]

To me, wearing the Genesis pin is akin to having a full Schutzstaffel Death's Head/Sig Runes combo—you are on the side of evil. These will run you €18 ($23). [Supermandolini - Thanks, Emanuel!]

It's all in the controllers—to the eye, they're nearly indistinguishable from the late-generation, 6-button controllers offered by Sega. Plus this version of the Genesis should come with improved A/V connectors (maybe even S-Video?) to put a prettier picture on your honking HD set.

With 15 free bundled games (Alex Kid, Alien Storm, Altered Beast, Arrow Flash, Bonanza Bros., Columns, Crack Down, Decap Attack, E Swat, Fatal Labyrinth, Flicky, Gain Ground, Golden Axe, Shadow Dancer, and Sonic And Knuckles), the Blaze Sega Mega Drive will be available soon for about $50. The only catch is that it's probably for PAL TVs only, so you'll need to keep an eye out for an NTSC version. [Play via Kotaku]

The controllers look only tolerable and they use proprietary connectors (so no plugging in your own), but that lightgun appears to be a fantastic recreation of the original. [eBay via Unplggd and Videogame Central]

The Blaze is loaded with Sonic and Knuckles, Golden Axe, Shinobi, Ecco the Dolphin, Alex Kidd - Enchanted Castle, Alien Storm Altered Beast, Arrow Flash, Crackdown, Decap Attack, Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, Ecco Junior, Flicky, Gain Ground, Jewel Master, Kid Chameleon, Sonic Spinball and Shadow Dancer. I said some. [Crowded Brain]

The device, packed with retro gaming orgasmic material, will retail for around $100, but will only be available to those lucky Brazilians. The 20 games that are loaded on it will include Alex Kidd, Golden Axe, Ecco and obligatory Sonic titles (among others). It is not all good news though; there is no way to add new titles, $100 is a little steep and you could probably get an emulator to carry out a similar task. What the hell, these novelty devices cannot but help to put a smile on our faces, and a little cheer in our cynical souls. We'll look past the non-rechargeable 3 x AAA batteries included and dream of all the good times, when we were 3"0' tall and battling a blue superhero hedgehog through the Green Metropolis. A blue superhero hedgehog...how high were they? [Retro to Go]