Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Video Game Bunker - Sonic the Hedgehog

5 comments:

  1. You mention something in the video about Sonic being able to be played with an Atari 2600 controller because of its 1-button control scheme.

    Actually you CAN play sonic with an Atari 2600 controller. It's the same controller port. You just have to switch the controllers after the start screen, for the 2600's lack of a start button.

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  2. Yep, indeed you can! I remember noticing that on the Genesis many years ago.

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  3. Please get a better video player. This one stopped streaming 15 minutes in. I refreshed the page to get it to reload, and it won't let me skip ahead. I have to wait the whole freaking 15 minutes to buffer if I want to see the rest of the video. Very stupid.

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  4. I honestly think you're being really harsh just because you can look back retrospectively through the eyes of what Sonic has become and what his competition (like Mario) has been able to accomplish. Its really easy to say now that the level design isn't perfect, or that Sega wasn't doing things best, because we've had 20 years to watch them fuck it up. In fact, I doubt you would have known this, but actually none of the three original creators were even around after the Adventure series. Sonic also caught a really bad situation during the 64-bit era. There's just so many circumstances that lead to Sonic failing, and although some of these can be traced back to philosophical problems with the first games (i.e. like having a character based around PURE UNADULTERATED SPEED instead of exploration or strategy) I think its very unfair to blame the downfall of Sonic as some sort of inherent collapse right from the get go.

    A lot of your complaints- ESPECIALLY those about not having played the game so much you know every twist and turn and obstacle -is something I could say about the Super Mario series. I can't get ANYWHERE in the first few games. Super Mario 3 is one of the most revered games of all time, but I just... hate it. To me the power-ups are needlessly complicated, the character is too vulnerable, there's no way to save or continue (at least in the original from what I remember), etc etc etc. But I'm not gonna go on camera and bash Mario or these games because I understand how important they are to game history. By the Super Mario World series I was able to get the hang of it, plus they had save files. Great music, I felt like the power-ups worked better, they had interesting boss variations, etc.

    If your gripe is that Sonic had way too basic controls and the physics were weird to you, it's like me saying I don't get why you have to eat mushrooms to stay big to stay alive and why I had to use the same button to shoot fireballs as I did to run. Game design was an infant art back then. Both games are difficult for people who haven't dedicated several hours and replays to them. You obviously had a lot more time with the Mario, I had more time with Sonic. You might hate Sonic, but to me those first few games (yes, even up to Adventure) represent a lot of my childhood and you might find it crazy, but I personally believe Sonic 3 proves that, for at least one game, how phenomenally better Sonic was than Mario...

    But that's just me.

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  5. first of all, if you hate tails, just turn him off. go to the options screen and it's the first option. Also, pressing in the opposite direction to the direction you're running will slow you to a stop, and rolling is quite good for picking up speed if you're going downhill.
    you claim that the game is really frustrating and hard for a new player, but in fact, it's a lot easier and more self explanatory than super mario bros. the first time I played super mario bros, a few years ago, I couldn't get past the first few jumps because the physics were so weird. In fact, I never played the 16 bit sonic games until I was about 15, and I got the hang of them immediately. I'm sorry If I'm ranting a bit, but I think a lot of your complaints are way too harsh and a bit biased in favour of mario. although, in fairness, 16 bit mario was controlled better than sonic. I also don't see how "all" the enemies are cheap shots, given the fact that you showed enemies from 3 stages, two of which were simply you fucking up and jumping at projectiles like an idiot. metropolis zone is cheap, because you can't adequitely dodge the enemies in the small spaces and the springs keep bouncing you into them, but otherwise sonic 2 is easy as shit.

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