These weren't the only Sega games never to appear. A trio of titles was developed for an all-new Mega Drive add-on, the Mega VR. It was to be a virtual reality headset that plugged into the Mega Drive and offered "a new dimension in gaming". However, early tests proved that all the Mega VR offered was migraines and sore eyes and it was swiftly binned.

It wasn't to be the first time cancelled hardware resulted in cancelled games. Who can say what the 64DD versions of F-Zero and Zelda would've been like, or the 64DD Mario 2? Also, lest we forget there was the Super NES CD-ROM add-on which was developed by Sony, only for Nintendo to back out halfway through the project. The first game to be signed for the abortive system was the pre-rendered puzzle adventure The 7th Guest.

Even after the Super CD went the way of all flesh, Nintendo's long-time bedfellows Argonaut Software were to suffer a pair of high-profile Super NES misfires. Having co-developed the Super FX chip with Nintendo and helped with Starwing, the firm were given carte blanche to create Starwing 2, which was set to ditch the on-rails gameplay of the original in favour of 360-degree environments and a potentially lovely two-player mode. Except, despite the best efforts of all involved, it didn't. Argonaut's second mess-up was FX Fighters, a barely disguised re-interpretation of Sega's Virtua Fighter. Despite a valiant effort at getting the 3D beat 'em up to work, the game died a painful death and was ultimately sneaked out on PC to a reception of confused coughs.

So then, next time you're playing a game, don't just take it for granted - consider the epic journey it's taken to get into your hands. Consider how it's crawled naked through the Fires of Hell itself, dodged the brickbats of thugs and clambered over the bodies of the fallen. Not every game that makes it deserves to, but even Cool Boarders 2 deserves a little of your respect.