Today must be national Sega Nostalgia Day. If you own a Wii, you can download Sega’s Super Hang-On and relive those arcade glory days. And if you’re more of a PC gamer, you can now head to Steam and get your Genesis fix in one convenient package.

Available today, Steam players can purchase Sega’s Genesis Classics Collection 5  and get 10 Sega titles for $7.99. Each game features full in-game save features and can also be purchased individually for $2.99.

• Golden Axe III
• Beyond Oasis / The Story of Thor
• Dynamite Headdy
• Phantasy Star II
• Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
• Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
• Streets of Rage 3
• The Revenge of Shinobi
• Vectorman 2
• Wonder Boy in Monster World

I suppose I had a weird video game upbringing.

Between friends’ houses and arcades, I played everything growing up, but what I had at my house was different. I owned an NES, but a Genesis instead of SNES. I owned a Dreamcast and a PlayStation but an Xbox instead of PlayStation 2. Now I focus on PlayStation 3 instead of 360, but occasionally play Wii.

Though I admit I mostly play Wii for Virtual Console lately. And I recently bought the retro video game player on Think Geek.

And all along, I always loved PC games. It was a victory to figure out the perfect Autoexec.bat and Config.sys file so that I could get most of the games to run on my old 486SX PC that ran Windows 3.1 — it came with 4MB of RAM, but we upgraded it to a whopping 8MB and added a CD-ROM drive.

One thing I did miss out on: I didn’t play the Final Fantasy series growing up.

There have been some amazing games made lately, but nothing has ever sucked me into a virtual world like some of the games I played when I was young. Even with the realistic sounds and graphics of today’s games, it was the nuances of childhood games that stuck.

Here is my list of the 10 games I played the most.

10. The “Strike” franchise (Genesis)

Jungle Strike, Urban Strike and Desert Strike. Three buttons, three weapons. You move, shoot, reload and hope for an armor crate eventually.

The games are the purest example of simplicity. There’s some story mixed in, but really these are arcade games. They’re fun, challenging, addictive, and satisfying.

9. Contra (NES)

Up up, down down, left right, left right, B-A-B-A, Start. That got you 30 lives, instead of the impossible three that you started with.

Though, I beat the game on 4 lives on the Think Geek retro player recently. It’s like riding a bike. Just get that first “Spread” weapon and never lose it.

Contra is a shooting-based platformer with sequels that range from impossibly difficult to absurdly bad. But the original stands as one of the best games ever made, and it was one of the first multiplayer action games that felt rewarding enough to repeat.

Because everyone wants to relive that ride home in a helicopter.

8. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

Do I really need to explain much here? The platformer genre never got any better after this. The Mario Bros. were in their golden age here.

Mushroom houses, whistles, hammer brothers, sand, water, fire and floating gunships combine to send you on a trip you’ll not soon forget.

This was also a big game to hit with Game Genie codes, especially in — I think it was — World 4 with all the sky levels.

7. Shining Force II (Genesis)

Shining Force will make the list twice. Remember, this is a list of games I dedicated the most time to. Shining Force II was a lot harder than the original Shining Force. It wasn’t as intuitive, and though I played the original a lot more often, it was the sequel that eluded me for a long time, especially after the Sega Channel dropped the game from its list.

For the longest time, I couldn’t get past a certain point where I had to interact with a hollow oak tree to obtain an ancient caravan that would let me progress further in the game. It was a shock when I finally figured it out.

6. Fighters Anthology (PC/DOS)

The entire PC combat flight simulation genre came to an apex here. Jane’s and Electronic Arts had success with both Navy Fighters and Advanced Tactical Fighter. So when they combined the games into one title and added several more campaigns, the result was a three-inch thick box with an (unnecessary) novel-sized manual and two CD-ROMs.

The game was sick. You could spend days flying around Vietnam, Russia, Ukraine, China and even Cuba. You career spanned some 50 years, from F-4′s in Nam to F-14s in a 1998 Russian invasion of Ukraine to F-22′s and X-31′s in Egypt in the early 21st century.

The game also had a rich following from third parties who developed an assortment of modifications, including new plans, weapons, buildings and even nukes.

5. Shining Force (Genesis)

This game, too, disappeared from Sega Channel. It disappeared before I could beat it. Years later, I would trade in some then worthless Dreamcast games for the Shining Force cartridge.

It was actually emotional to beat this game. The strategy, the sacrifice. The game told a story and forced the imagination into overdrive.

4. Doom and Doom 2(PC/DOS)

I still play these next four games whenever I can. Doom started it all for me. It was the first game I ever installed from a CD-ROM.

I played the shareware first episode of Doom for months. It was only nine levels (I forget if the bonus level was in the shareware), but there was something about shooting imps and shotgun-toting former human sergeants that’s still addicting.

We didn’t get The Ultimate Doom, which included the three original Doom episodes and a fourth called “Thy Flesh Consumed,” until years after we bought Doom 2.

Enter Doom 2. Now there’s 32 levels.

The levels were better, the enemies were more plentiful and there were two new weapons. I’d brag — I have gone through the entire game without cheats on Nightmare. I probably can’t do it anymore.

The only way we ever improved on Doom 2 was by playing Doom 2 for Windows 95 over our home network, without lag.

Be thankful kids, Doom’s deathmatch paved a blood-stained road that leads right to your Slayer matches in Halo 3.

3. Phantasy Star IV

There’s a healthy mix of action and RPG in this mix of games, but nothing (except maybe the next title) can possibly match the depth I found in Phantasy Star IV.

Not only was the game a graphical wonder with depth of character development and attack technique, but it was a wicked long game to beat. The game goes on forever, and you can’t just skip through it. You have to fight every battle and gain every character level to even have a chance at taking on the final boss.

Phantasy Star IV is also in this sort of cyberpunk post-modern fantasy world with remnants of ancient, advanced technology despite the primitive, agrarian lifestyle of the characters. That makes more sense if you played Phantasy Star I-III, but the fourth installment was the best.

It was such a perfectly made game. It was stylized but not over the top. It had dialog you could understand. It had character development. I dare you not to shed a tear when Alys dies.

2. Shadowrun (Genesis)

Karma is something you earn.

I still wish there was a 16-bit sequel to Shadowrun. I didn’t like the popular SNES Shadowrun RPG. It was the totally different Genesis game that owned me.

It’s all about depth. Character development, conversations and interactions, weapons, magic, guns, computers, dragons, elves, trolls and evil mega corporations in 21st century Seattle result in one of my favorite games and #2 on my most played list. You could even ignore the plot and become a mercenary or freelance computer hacker.

This was Shadowrun. There was as much reading as there was shooting. Don’t even talk to me about the newer Xbox 360/PC game that happens to be called Shadowrun. It’s a disgrace. It’s pitiful. It’s sacrilegious.

1. Tie Fighter Collector’s Edition (PC/DOS)

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and a fight or flight response triggered the first time Admiral Harkov betrayed me to die in a Rebel minefield while flying Tie Interceptor Gamma 1.

I was doomed. The Victory Class Star Destroyer Protector was firing on me and a Rebel cruiser dropped out of hyperspace to back up the traitors. I, a loyal Imperial naval aviator, was singled out for a creative extermination.

Then the cavalry came. The Modified Frigate Osprey, carrying shielded Tie Interceptors from Theta group arrived to pick me up from the clutches of certain death.

I was born after the original Star Wars trilogy and way before Episodes I-III. I didn’t read the books growing up. It was this game, which still ranks as one of the best computer games ever released, that gave me my Star Wars education and left me rooting for the Empire from then onward.

Tie Fighter Collector’s CD puts you in the cockpit of the Empire and immerses the player in a world of intrigue, open war and piracy. The full voice acting (one of the first games to do it) and sound effects are forever burned into my mind. And when the throes of dementia take me later in life and I end up spouting off “Die Rebel Scum” and “Peace between the Dimok and Ripoblus!” in my nursing home, you’ll know why.

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection has an obvious appeal. For only 30 bucks, gamers can own a collection of 48 Sega Genesis, Mega Drive, and Arcade games to play on one disc. From every major Sonic the Hedgehog iteration to lesser known titles like Comix Zone and Beyond Oasis, Sega fans can carve out hundreds of hours of gameplay in one location.

But what isn’t obvious about this compilation is that an inherit aging problem hurts some of these games. While they are all presented in top-notch form, with perfect emulation, customizable controls, and a wide variety of unlockables, some of these games are simply not worth playing anymore. Those looking for nostalgia will no doubt find their fix here but newcomers will uncover both classics and absolute duds.

The commendable amount of attention paid to this collection is recognizable from the very start. The main menu resembles the classic Genesis system with a large black panel on the left, L-shaped with a round center, listing all games immediately playable. On the right, video previews of selected games play within the shape of the standard Genesis cartridge, even exposing the motherboard slightly on the bottom.

Each game on the main list, one that can be sorted multiple ways (Alphabetically, chronologically, or by genre and preference), is given perfect presentations with multiple display options. As a default each game will start in their original format of 4:3. Those with widescreen TVs will see a game-specific background and a border adorning the edges of the reduced gameplay screen. However, in the collection’s pop-up menu, accessed by hitting Select, the game can be stretched to fill a 16:9 format.

Under that same “Video Setup” menu, a “Smooting” option can be activated, which gives each game a waxy veneer, apparently hoping to make them look more presentable on bigger TVs. While it does help to wrinkle out some otherwise noticeable imperfections, it also hinders the original look and style which will definitely drive some away. Also, games with heavy uses of text, like the Phantasy Star saga, don’t utilize the feature that well as some of the words become harder to read. Luckily, though, it can turned off, which is highly recommended.

Also in the pop-up menu are options to change the control scheme. The compilation automatically uses an altered layout to help fit the 360 controller, assigning actions where they feel more comfortable. But an “ABC Mode” is also available, which gives the A button of the original Genesis to the X button on 360, the B button to A and the C button to B. This won’t effect most games but others, like Vectorman, will definitely feel different.

Using the ABC mode, Vectorman jumps with B and fires with with X and A on the 360 pad, but with the default controls he jumps with A and shoots with X and B which seems to fit with most platformers available on the more modern system. On the original Genesis controller, all three main buttons were aligned horizontally, making it easier to assign a jump button to C, since most gamers could place the lower half of the thumb on that button and easily reach A and B with the top. The 360 controller, however, aligns its buttons in a square, so having a platformer use the jump button on anything other than A just feels awkward.

Regardless of the choice, 360 owners using the standard controller will not be able to escape the dreaded D-pad. Unlike the PS3, which uses four distinct buttons for all four directions, Microsoft’s pad is one large concave piece that feels mushy and unresponsive. Developers have dealt with this issue in the past but it particularly hurts Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection since these retro games were designed to be played with the D-pad. The only other option is the analog stick, which works in some instances, like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Streets of Rage, but not so well in other cases, like Fatal Labyrinth and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. The latter games require precise movement to play effectively and the analog stick just doesn’t match what a good D-pad can offer.

Interplay announced Monday that four of its Sega Genesis titles are slated to appear on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console later this year

Earthworm Jim, Earthworm Jim 2, Boogerman and Clayfighter will be available for download in the coming months, confirmed Luke Haase, spokesman for the game developer. Haase could not confirm a release date on the games.

Interplay is on the verge of a comeback. They are one of the oldest operational video game developers. They ran into serious financial troubles in 2004 and stopped developing games shortly afterward. In November, they announced that they would use the proceeds from selling off their property, Fallout, to Bethesda Softworks — of Elder Scrolls fame.

On April 8, Interplay confirmed it was working on sequels to Dark Alliance, Earthworm Jim, Descent and MDK.

Interplay is responsible for not only those titles in video game history but also Baldur’s Gate, Battlechess, Descent and Alone in the Dark.

Nintendo’s Virtual Console makes games from NES, SNES, N64, NEOGEO, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 titles available for cheap download and play on the Wii.