The gaming future started at UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, UP, UP, DOWN, START
If you owned at least one (but not limited to):
- Sega Master System I or II
- NES
- Super NES
- Mega Drive I or II
- Mega CD I or II
then you’d would’ve been up first thing Saturday morning to watch the latest in gaming with these guys…
Welcome to 1994.
Welcome to The Zone – a 30 minute show on Channel 9 played while you ate your coco pops and weet-bix. Sponsored by Sega, the magazine style show was presented by a variety of hosts (Adam Riley, Justin Mansour, Megan Connolly and Dave Kelly, just to name a few). The Zone was a gaming review show that covered the latest in game consoles (Sega, Nintendo, PC, Game Boy and Arcade), reviews, hints and cheats for the ’90s gamer.
The Zone was a simple, low budget show, where all the kids were just hankering to see the latest in games and graphics, while sitting in front of the TV with their latest issue of MegaZone or Hyper magazine. But that came down to if you were Team Sega or Team Nintendo.
It was too good for its time, as it didn’t receive enough exposure as you would get now with shows like Good Game, but it definitely paved the way for a gaming review show for the Australian audience. Now, you just have to hop on YouTube for someone to have created a show from their bedroom. The show raked up 57 episodes in one season, which if it tried to do that on a commercial TV station, would’ve been axed after 3 weeks.
Indulge yourself with reviews on 8 – 16 bit graphic games and remembering to do “Up, down, left, right, up, up, down Start” on your Sonic the Hedgehog level cheat.
