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Tag: Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic & Knuckles Collection: Back when Sega published PC games.

Back in the mid ’90s, when Sega slowly was losing its competitive edge against veteran Nintendo and newcomer Sony, they were also publishing a fair share of their games on Windows PCs. This isn’t as well known as their other stuff, considering most of them were ports of existing Genesis and Saturn games now running on the Windows 95 PCs of the era.

Most of the ports were of somewhat lesser-known stuff like Comix Zone and Tomcat Alley. Eventually they started releasing more iconic games, some even in compilations. But then a certain blue hedgehog burst onto the PC scene, and for real this time, rather than fan games made by Sonic diehards in Klik’n’Play.

Featuring The Best Sonic Game. Anyone who says Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the best Sonic game is a liar.

Sonic & Knuckles Collection was released in late 1997 for Windows 1995, and was the second major Sonic game to reach PC, the first being two different ports of Sonic CD. Though the Hedgehog was branching out to other ventures, including the educational Sonic’s Schoolhouse, this was probably one of the biggest gets for PC gamers who didn’t really dabble much in the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive library.

I was strictly a Nintendo kid pretty much until the late ’90s, when I got my first PC. A Windows 3.11 Packard Bell machine. While I did own other platforms, including a Genesis, I never really got to really experience the platform’s greatest stuff until many years later, thus I never got to play Sonic 3 & Knuckles until this PC release.

Well, that infamous platform jumping section through rising water in Sonic 2‘s Chemical Plant Act 2 traumatized me pretty bad when I was younger. I ended up getting Sonic 3 not long after it came out in 1994, but when I got to Hydrocity Zone and realizing it was involve a lot of water, I got so scared that I shut off the Genesis and asked to return the game. While it doesn’t bother me nearly as much these days, I can still get a bit of a twinge whenever I hear that damn drowning music when playing a Sonic game. Damn you Yukifumi Makino, making a 10 second ditty that haunted kids for generations!

Nooo don’t send me down there

Over the years I have procured one, not two, but three copies of this dang game. The first one I got was part of a Jack in the Box promotion in 1999, which was part of a kid’s meal promotion the restaurant had around that time. had a few other Sega PC games such as Sonic 3D Blast, Bug! and the original Ecco the Dolphin. The others were a complete-in-box copy I found at in the bargain section at an office supply store, and a CD jewel case copy that was part of a Sonic three pack with Sonic CD and Sonic R.

They do say that you can never have enough of a game, but I think three copies is a tad much. But hey, it’s kinda hard to get rid of stuff like this, y’know?

The menu where you choose what game you want to play. I like the fairly random “2-PLAY OK” on the side.
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July 24, 2016
I Bought Stuff!: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2015 edition.
Before, I wrote blogs about the stuff I bought under the relatively boring “Game finds” title. I wanted something more punchy, more exciting. Then the name came to me. It’s sillier, but I like it better than the old one. So, re-introducing a semi-regular feature on the blog: I Bought Stuff!

This one will be all the stuff I got at this year’s Portland Retro Gaming Expo. I could go into great lengths about the PGRE itself, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I did get to enjoy classics like Outrun and Crazy Taxi, I saw some pro-level Tetris being played, I saw people play multiplayer Star Wars Battlefront 2 over Xbox System Link, and I met the guys who made Game Sack. This was a good year as always, and I anticipate the next year being bigger and better.

I will publicly admit that all but 2 of the things I bought were recent 360/Wii/PS2 stuff, mostly shooters. You could call me a “fake retro gamer” if you want, but I’ve gotten to the point where either I have everything I want, or the things I want are ridiculously expensive to me. For example, I totally want the Spyro the Dragon trilogy, but I ain’t paying $20-25 for each game, especially when I bought the entire trilogy on the PlayStation Network for a buck a piece. I am not one who can throw hundreds on Turbografx-16s, Steel Battallion controllers or even a complete copy of Panic Restaurant (though I give Chris Kohler guts for even offering $800 for it). So instead I go for the cheaper stuff, and that’s usually games from a generation or two back.

It’s probably the best time as any to start grabbing Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 stuff. As people are now full steam ahead on the more newer PS4 and Xbox One, some older games are gonna get harder and harder to get. So I got a fair share of stuff and junk. Let’s see what stuff I bought.

So much military stuff. What’s wrong with me?

$10:
- Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360)
- Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (Xbox 360)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Xbox 360)
- Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360)
- Call of Duty 3 (Wii)
So one of the booths, Another Castle based out of Edmonds, WA, was doing a ridiculous fire sale on Sunday. One of the aisles had 2 games for $5, or 5 for $10. Most of them were shooters or sports games, and I thought I’d grab some of the few that I missed out on for a good bargain.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and GRAW 2 were pretty solid third-person shooters for their time. I don’t expect them to have aged gracefully, but the first one was the big action game people were playing on their 360s ’til Gears of War came along later in 2006. Since I had gotten Future Soldier earlier in the year, I thought I might as well grab all the remaining Ghost Recon games on the 360.

Funny enough, the only Gears of War game I owned at this point was the first. Heard that Gears 2 was a superior sequel, and I even heard good things about the later ones. I bet this would be a blast to play in co-op.

I always wanted to try Wii versions of popular 360/PS3 games, like Call of Duty 3. It felt like it was built for the Wii first, considering the ridiculous quick-time events involving fighting enemy soldiers. Here’s hoping I can get used to waggle motions, as I had difficulty playing through Medal of Honor Heroes II with it’s weird first-person shooter/light gun hybrid control scheme.

I had beaten Modern Warfare 3 in the past, back when I had a Gamefly subscription. Hell, I even wrote a blog on the shoddy PC port after dabbling in it on a Steam free weekend. I only got this because it the fifth game of the “5 for $10” deal. It was either this or EA’s Medal of Honor reboot from 2010, and I decided to go with the ridiculously over-the-top shooter as opposed to the copycat. (Update: In 2018, I would later play that Medal of Honor reboot from 2010 on the PC, and it turns out to be just as bad as I was expecting! You can read about that here.)

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October 19, 2015
A look back at Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons.

So, as of this writing in 2014, Sega recently announced a new Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon titled Sonic Boom, complete with the common video game tie-ins. This was buzzing around the internet for the past couple of days, most notably because everybody couldn’t stop complaining about everybody’s character redesigns.

Tails going “Have you *seen* what these jerks on the internet have said about us??”

After that announcement, I realized that this will be the fifth cartoon featuring that blue hedgehog in the past 23 years. So for this particular post, I decided to watch a handful of episodes of the previous iterations of Sonic in cartoon form: Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Underground and Sonic X.

As a fair share of cartoons back then really didn’t have season-long story arcs, I figured a sampling of each series was good enough. This also gives me a chance to experience my vague memories of two of the series, and whether or not they held up.

I will say upfront that I am not an authority on Sonic the Hedgehog. I was a big Nintendo kid until about the mid-2000s, and while I had a Genesis and played Sonic in its heyday, it never really grabbed me until years later. The most recent Sonic game I played was Sonic Generations, and despite fan praise, It wasn’t really that fun to me. Before that, it was Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Battle and Sonic Rush, all games that I never really finished and found too frustrating in spots to complete.

While I’m not one of those people who goes “maybe Sonic was never good,” I am going at this with a more critical eye than someone who praises the blue blur to the high heavens. But enough about that, let’s take a travel through time and look back at Sonic’s cartoon past.

This took me about an hour to make. Reminder that I am a writer, not a graphic designer.

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Originally airing in syndication from 1993-94, this was DiC’s first animated Sonic cartoon, and the one that I remember a watching a lot when I was younger.

Running for 65 episodes, the storyline for each episode was similar: Robotnik would hatch a scheme, get his minions Scratch and Grounder – based on characters from the actual games – to fool Sonic into falling for said schemes, Sonic stopping Robotnik’s plans, and Robotnik screaming in anger at his failed plan. Every time. You could make a supercut of Robotnik going “I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!”, he says it a lot throughout the series.

Oh yeah, Sonic also was a master costumer.

Jaleel White, better known as Steve Urkel on Family Matters, was the voice of Sonic for Adventures, as well as the two cartoons that followed. Robotnik was voiced by noted blues singer Long John Baldry (1941-2005), whose cries of hating that hedgehog and general dramatic demeanor gave Robotnik that cartoon villain attitude which perfectly worked with the rest of the show. Naturally since this came out after Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Tails (voiced by Christopher S. Welch) joins Sonic on these shenanigans.

Since there was only a handful of regular characters, a bunch of the plots would involve guest characters that would come and go. While there were some repeat visitors, often they would only appear for a single episode. There’s one episode I remember featuring a country singer named Catty Carlisle, which is one of those “only adults will get this reference” things I mentioned earlier.

Oh Robotnik, you fat, lovable goof.

Adventures had lots of goofy cartoon antics, jokes, and other silly things that fit right in line with old Looney Tunes cartoons. It’s clearly meant for kids, though it had its moments where adults may find the jokes and more obscure references enjoyable. Like, there’s a handful of scenes has Robotnik’s naked or in a bikini. It’s all goofy stuff.

After every episode, there’s the rather… infamous Sonic Says segments. Basically Sonic and Tails are giving kids life lessons. This was before it was required for American television to plan at least three hours of programming a week to educational content, so they probably thought ahead on these.

I wish I could say these were entertaining, but they’re not. They come off as a rip off of stuff like the famous PSAs for G.I. Joe, or the “Planeteer Alerts” from Captain Planet and the Planeteers. They’re just silly commonplace stuff that a parent should be telling you about, not some blue hedgehog.

It gets even weirder. Some of these “Sonic Says” bits have gained viral video status such as one where Sonic talks about sexual harassment. I am not making this up, I swear. You need to see it to believe it.

Out of all the Sonic cartoons, this one is the best. It’s cheesy in a typical kids cartoon sort of way, though not incredibly stupid and surreal all the time like Spongebob Squarepants tends to be. Despite the weird “Sonic Says” PSAs at the end of every episode, the show is still entertaining and goofy to this day. Though, it is something you can really only watch one or two episodes of before you get sick of it.
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February 10, 2014
NOT FOR RESALE: The mystery of this weird message.

A few days ago, I had snagged this wonderful gem:

I sometimes wonder how used games get all dinged up like this.

Streets of Rage 2, a Sega Genesis classic, for $5. Initially I passed on this, but then I realized it’s Streets of Rage 2, a freakin’ Genesis classic. That Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack! Who could pass that up? The dummy writing this. Thankfully, I was able to correct my mistake and grab it as a wonderful addition to my Genesis collection, along with a Sonic cartridge compilation called Sonic Classics.

Granted, it’s just a cartridge copy and it isn’t in the best of shape, but it’s nice to have. There’s something special about this cartridge: The giant “NOT FOR RESALE” label on it. Anyone who’s into collecting Sega Genesis stuff may have also seen the big “NOT FOR RESALE” stickers on copies of Sonic the Hedgehog. My Sonic the Hedgehog 2 came with my Sega Genesis long ago also with a “Not for Resale” sticker on it. Many pack-in games on the Genesis also came with the “not for resale” sticker on them. It made me wonder: Why is this ugly text on there, and what was its purpose?

At first, I thought this meant so that these couldn’t be resold at second-hand shops, but that wouldn’t make any sense, even when this was new. After doing a bit of research and asking a friend, it turns out it’s a much more sinister story.

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December 6, 2013
Mods and Maps: Sonic Doom II: ‘Bots on Mobius.

I love Doom. The fast-paced action, the creative levels, the large variety of weapons and enemies. It’s no wonder it’s held up as a classic in the first-person shooter genre. In recent times, people have made Doom last longer by way of modding – changing Doom‘s weapons, levels, even adding stuff never before seen on the Doom engine.

Some of these mods, like Alien Vendetta and Doom the Way Id Did, take an existing spin on the tried-and-true formula, while others like Brutal Doom change the game drastically. Those mods are famous and well-known among the Doom community for their good quality. I wish I could say the same thing about the mod I’m talking about, featuring a certain blue hedgehog.

It’s like I’ve hopped back into 1998! and not in a good way!

Sonic Doom II: ‘Bots on Mobius is the work of one SSNTails, a Sonic the Hedgehog and Project GeeKer fan. It’s okay if you had to Google search that last one, I don’t remember the show either. Back then, mashing existing franchises with Doom was pretty common – there was the Aliens TC for Doom, as well as Batman Doom, made by the guys who would later go on to make Zeno Clash. Naturally, SSNTails decided to mix the speed and fun of Sonic with the run and gun tactics of Doom and see if he could make something truly amazing in the Sonic fan games realm. Unfortunately, he didn’t succeed in that.

You get to play as either Sonic, Tails, Knuckles or Metal Sonic. The only differences between each is stuff like firing speed. You choose the character of your choice and hop in, shooting a bunch of reskins of existing Doom enemies in retextured Doom levels based on levels in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Grounder replaces Zombiemen, Shotgun Guys and Chaingunners; Coconuts are your imp replacements, and various new badniks replace the Demons, Spectres and Barons. You grab emeralds to unlock doors and eventually find the exit. It’s typical Doom fare. That’s all the good I can say about it. Because everything after it is much worse, especially for Doom mods.

Seriously, this Shotgun reskin makes it look like Sonic’s holding something rather phallic.

Do you like running through large, square rooms with nothing to make it stand out besides a prop or two? Do you like areas where you have to move quickly through the area, otherwise you get stuck and are forced to slowly lose health and die? Do you like fighting reskins of Revenants and Arachnotrons that are ripped straight from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, looking terrible as a result? Do you like terrible-looking gun reskins, even for 1998? If you said yes to any of these, you’ll have a blast with Sonic Doom II.

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June 2, 2013