Sonic Rant

This was the first ever online rant I wrote and there where many aspects of the industry that grinded my gears. However, at the end of the day the only thing that is so big, so dilapidated, so god dam saddening that it deserves to be the rant that started it all is the ongoing smurfing of Sonic. Cast your minds back to the start of the 1990’s. It was a time of rave music, brit-pop and the 4th generation console war. It was Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) vs SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System). One had the games that set the groundwork for the next 20 years of gaming, the other had Blast Processing. However, more importantly, one had Sonic the Hedgehog.

Sonic was the first mascot sega had that people actually gave a crap about; Al Kid or Alex Ky was their first unofficial mascot. In 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog came out on the Mega Drive and half the world’s eyes popped out. From the second you heard the music, you knew this was going to be a sight to behold. High speed platforming, intricate boss battles, intelligent level design, the list could go on and on. This game put the Mega Drive on the map and made it a success. A game of this magnitude deserved a sequel and boy did it get one. In 1992 Sonic 2 was released and improved on the first game in every way possible. There were neon lights in one level, a level set in the sky with robot turtles flying on bigger robot turtles, a level where you could fall into some sort of purple chemical and drown. On top of that, every level had perfect music to compliment the level. Casino Nights Zone is still one of the best bits of music ever in a video game. The level design had multiple paths, something not usually seen in most platform games of the time. It was simply a perfect game. Sonic 3 took a bit longer to release but graced our shores in 1994 and introduced a new character. Little did we know this was the beginning of the end.

There had been characters added in the cartoon series and the comic but never before had a character made the transition to one of the games. But for a time it was good. Knuckles fitted into the game, first as a baddy then, after being double crossed by Robotnic, as one of the good guys in Sonic and Knuckles. The reason he fitted in was because he was cool. He could glide and climb walls; he was generally considered a bad ass. He could even plug into Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 and be a playable character, which at the time made me annoy quite a few Blockbuster employees. Overall he worked. Sonic’s first leap into 3D was a glimpse at what would become of the Sonic franchise. Flicky’s Island was,at the very least, an okay attempt with what 3D technology they had but it wasn’t good enough. The controls where shoddy and it looked awful. On top of that, it introduced a new character in Flicky, who was a very annoying small yellow bird and did fuck all. This was when the people at sega thought; hey you know that Flicky thing, well everyone loved him so much why don’t we introduce more characters and force people to talk to them. And so it begins.

Sonic Adventure, though a good game, had elements where you had to walk around a hub and talk to things. When I’m playing a Sonic game the one thing I really don’t want to be doing is walking around a fucking town and asking people how their day has been. I want to be bolting through a level at the speed of sound only stopping to jump on whatever robot has had the misfortune to get in my general path. Sonic Adventure 2 had the same game plan but had we know what we have now for sonic games we would have cherished those Dreamcast wonders.

Sonic Heroes was released in 2004 and, thank god, it had done away with talking to all those annoying fuckers around town. Instead, they had put those annoying fuckers into the fucking game. Now not only could you play as Sonic, Tales and Knuckles, you could play as Shadow, Rogue, E-123 (some sort of drug I’m guessing), Amy, Cream, Big, Cheese (read the last four out loud for a bit of a giggle), Espio, Charmy and Vector. It would have been okay if any of them had been half decent characters but no, Cream the Rabbit and Big the Cat sound like they have fallen out of a Disney film and Shadow the Hedgehog should have just been given the razor blades and been done with it. The game itself was a complete sham. Sonic and his “buddies” where now completely in 3D which meant the controls would have to be intricate and responsive in order to stop the characters falling off the edge. They weren’t. The bad robots would have to be very well designed in order for them to be a challenge. They weren’t. Everything about this game was bad. Worse still, you played as three characters at any one time, switching them about every 5 seconds so you could move a rock which meant all factors of speed where abolished from the game. A Sonic game where you couldn’t just speed through a level, what the fuck. This was the first nail in the coffin for Sonic. The next nail didn’t even have Sonic in it.

Shadow the Hedgehog was released in 2005 and low and behold, he had a gun. Shadow was the Sonic Series’ answer to Cloud from FF7. A stuck up, grumpy, whining emo bitch who moaned about everything and didn’t like to have friends because he doesn’t know how to fit in. Now granted that could describe Knuckles as well but like I already said, Knuckles was cool. Plus, Knuckles didn’t ride around in a fucking car that had the turning circle of Pluto and the controls of a cardboard box. Shadow also introduced us to weapons in a Sonic Game. This meant that in the rarity that there was a section where you could get your speed up, you had to stop every 10 fucking seconds to get your gun out and shoot something. On top of all that, the music sounded like it was made by five year old emos with a keyboard. So, another nail in the coffin.

Sonic the Hedgehog next gen was released on the xbox 360 and later on the PS3 in 2006. This game didn’t put a nail in the coffin, it took some glue and shut the coffin tight. Now not only could you play as the annoying fuckers, you had to run around a town, that was grayer than Aberdeen and talk to them as well. It had in-depth characters such as middle-aged man and middle-aged woman. A new playable character called Silver, who was Sonic’s rival from the future and could pick up barrels with his mind. To top it off, the game also had some of the worse controls ever seen in a video game coupled with some of the worse level design. It also had a story where Sonic had fallen in love with a princess and there was a cut scene which showed them frolicking in the countryside. It sounds like sega hired a pleb from a fan fiction website to make up a storyline that would involve Princess Peach running off with Sonic having six kids with him then Mario getting back at him by fucking up his franchise. It was a horrible game to play. You needed to use speed boosts on the ground to get your speed up on many levels but, in the rare occasions, when you did get your speed up you would either hit off a wall and come to a frustrating stop or you would fall off the side of the level due to a shit camera and bland graphics. It was by far the worse Sonic game in the series. But, salvation was at hand.

Sonic Unleashed was revealed in 2008 and it looked liked sega was finally listening to the fans. The game looked amazing. The trailers showed Sonic bolting through levels at blistering speeds, the camera looked like it followed the action beautifully and it even had a few nods to old school games with loop the loops done properly. Everything looked like it was finally getting back to normal. Then someone at sega realized that if they made a game like this kids wouldn’t buy it because kids don’t like to marvel at the sights and sounds of a blue lighting bolt speeding it’s way through stages of colour. No, they like to wade round dark ugly looking sewer environments; smashing robots to pieces with extendable arms that look liked the fucking hugging arms from that terrifying advert for cup-a-soup. I’m talking about the wearhog here. Sonic Unleashed was, for half the game, a return to form. The sections where you got to play as Sonic where actually pretty good. The controls where tight, the graphics where eye popping and the music was very snazzy. It was a return to form for Sonic. When night came though, the game forced you to play as the wearhog. This turned the game into a below average platformer that wouldn’t be out of place next to a movie tie-in game. The controls where very unintuitive, you attacked enemies by smashing them with your big extending wearhog arms. Imagin God of War but instead of the Chains of Athena, you had stretch armstrongs arms with mould on them. The camera was awful as well and always found a way of making the easiest jump a debacle that would result in you inserting the controller up your right nostril in frustration. A gaming website actually said they would have given the game eight out of ten had it not been for the wearhog sections and gave it six out of ten. Sega had been so close to that light at the end of the tunnel then decided that they wanted to cream the rabbit a bit more and went back for second helpings.

These days the only place you can find Sonic is on Nintendo consoles. This is like Master Chef appearing in Killzone 3 as a secret playable character. The Sonic games on the Wii aren’t that bad. In Sonic and the Black Knight, not featuring Monty Python characters sadly, you have a fucking sword, which yet again means you have to stop every 10 seconds to swashbuckler your way through the hordes of enemies. It just doesn’t seem to be ending for Sonic. There is a gigantic glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel though. A couple of months ago sega announced Project Needlemouse. This game could be the return to form that Sonic fans have been waiting for. Sega has promised that it will be a side scrolling 2D Sonic game with HD graphics and a throwback to the original 16 bit games. If sega can pull this off then all might be forgiven but lets get serious. They’re going to find a way to fuck this up. Either you’ll have to switch half way through a level to play as a new character, that will resemble Tigger or half the game with be a side scrolling beat em’ up where Sonic and Tales go through a city, beating up scores of punks with toilet cleaners. I don’t know how sega are going to fuck up this game but I have a horrible feeling their going to. If they don’t and if this game turns out to be the greatest thing to happen to Sonic since Big the Cat got put down for having cat-aids then, trust me, I’m going to be running up and down the streets, screaming at the top of my voice; he’s back and everyone is welcome to join me.