Those of you that follow the blog and our Twitter feed may have noticed a recent tweet about a tiny Mega Drive.

And here she is. The mini Mega Drive! #playingaway pic.twitter.com/oKcd0EvYDK

— UCHG (@UCHG2008) February 27, 2013

The more eagle eyed of you will notice that this little bad boy also wears a Sonic the Hedgehog badge. This implies that it is limited to playing only the games of the Hedgehog known as Sonic. This is a lie. Not only are you able to play some serious Hedgehog based games with Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic Spinball and Sonic 3D Blast. You can also play Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle!

I make that five perfectly playable games all packed into one easy to carry package. What more could you want? The Mini Mega Drive is also a doddle to connect up. So long as the TV has S-video and phono audio connections it’s game on. The simplicity of the set up coupled with the large screen gaming all help to bring home that “playing with yourself” in the living room experience, even if you are in a hotel room in Croydon.

So the next time you go away make sure you take something to play!

For extra gaming goodness follow the UCHG on Twitter @UCHG2008

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Ever wanted to play a magical purple goat with a mouse for a best friend and try to escape dungeons while helping rescue sheep?

Well, even if you haven’t this game is still worth playing.

Escape goat is an 8 bit puzzle platformer with an awesome soundtrack and although not as tough-as-nails as say Super Meat Boy, its not as straight forward as it first seems.

The story is rather flimsy (but when has that ever stopped a good platformer) and the main objective of each room is to gather keys and escape – simple right? Well not always. With the addition of the magic hat (picked up after the first few levels) some of the puzzles become rather difficult and you get a real sense of accomplishment when overcoming them.

I love the simplicity of this game and coupled with the music; makes it a platform game that I’ll remember as a classic (it has the same feeling as playing old games on retro consoles – and I miss that).

The main campaign isn’t wholly challenging, but does remain fun throughout (think it took about 2.5 – 3 hours to complete) but there’s a secondary campaign afterwards that is much harder and requires some real thought to complete the levels (I still haven’t got through them all yet).

It’s a quick-ish fun platformer which I highly recommend you give a go if you’re a fan of Mario or others in that genre. Plus it’s only $5 and DRM free – that’s hard to beat.

If you pick it up, let us know in the comments what you think of it.

I would like to start this post with a story…

 A group of men play games for many years and they go to war, playing all of the games in the history of gaming.

Afterwards they turn in the games and they believe they have finished with them.

But no matter what else they might do with their hands…

Love a woman, build a house, change their son’s diaper…

Their hands remember the games.

It has been almost 12 months since I last wrote something for the UCHG and for this I am sorry. It was never my intention to walk off into the sunset and abandon my mission. I planned to take a short break after I had relocated my arm of the UCHG and then get stuck back into it. This wasn’t how it went down. The days off turned into weeks and then into months and now I must stop this before the months make a year. People have said to me that this period of leave is the result of “growing up”, “maturing” and “becoming responsible” but this is clearly bollocks. I have not responsibly grown up and I remain as mature as a TESCO rump steak. I simply got carried away.

You see there is a small element of truth to be taken from the “maturing into a grown up responsibly” argument. It is true that I now have a smaller amount of free time due to the commitments of my work and the pumping of some sweet vag. But I feel that I have used that free time wisely.

The truth is that I am lazy, and as I mentioned before, I got carried away. Over the past months instead of playing a game and then writing about it, or shooting a video and then recording a Big Talk. I just played more games. During my time away I became the F1 2011 world champion twice, got lost in LIMBO, prevented the worlds end at the hands of terror in MOHWF, set new records in Mario Kart Super Circuit on the GBA, sobered up and shaved my head in Max Payne 3, played so much Battlefield 3 I started to think I was Russian, survived an Alien Swarm, went in search of Absolution as 47, played some serious Tetris mother fucker, kicked off my F1 2012 campaign, nuked the world in DEFCON, developed an addiction to Hill Climb Racing on my phone, wept at the mess that is Mario Kart Wii, went back to Black Mesa, competed in the California Games and reignited my love affair with Battlefield 1942.

It may have been a while but now I am back. I promise to share more of this gaming goodness and not to mature into some responsible grown up. Life may move on and the pumping will continue but no matter what I do with my hands, my hands will always remember the games.

This is more than just a hobby. It’s a way of life!