I get Sega Genesis Collection in the mail, and do I first play Ecco the Dolphin or Phantasy Star IV, the only two (of 33) included games I feel are still worth playing in this day and age?

No, I unlock everything that can be unlocked: old Sega arcade games, interviews, trailers and a cheats list.

Not one of the arcade games has aged well. The trailers and cheats can be seen, without spending time unlocking anything, on this Web site. Interviews are nice, but I will never view one a second time.

In short, I unlocked everything in Sega Genesis Collection for the sake of unlocking everything in Sega Genesis Collection. A waste of time.

Why? I'm not sure. I guess it bothered me that things were there but I couldn't access them.

At least, unlike most classic game collections, what is hidden in Sega Genesis Collection and the ways to unlock them are described in its Extras menu, and are easy to accomplish. Most require only entering a game. The few that require effort require little effort.

This isn't the first time I have unlocked things in a classic game collection for the sake of unlocking them. Last year I spent literally days gaining access to everything hidden in Sonic Gems Collection despite that Sonic CD--available from the start--was the only thing in the collection about which I cared, and I got blisters on my left thumb enabling the two hidden games in Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary even though Ms. Pac-Man--also available from the start--was the only game in it I wanted to play.

Go back a few years and there were countless hours wasted unlocking useless to me items in Activision Anthology, Atari Anthology, Mega Man Anniversary Collection, Sonic Mega Collection, Sonic Adventure DX--was that one ever painful--and probably several additional game collections I've played but can't remember playing at the moment.

All because I wanted access to everything even though everything--well, almost everything; someone decided to make Sonic 3 & Knuckles one of the unlockable games in Sonic Mega Collection--I would use was available immediately.

I'm beginning to understand how people become addicted to Xbox Achievements.