Day 342, Game 342 - Sonic The Hedgehog

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Somethings that I know now as an adult I wish I had known as a kid. I'm not talking about like how to manage finances better once you have your own source of income, or sometimes ugly reality of of your constant pursuit of love. No, the advice I wish I knew back then would still be very vague and mysterious of what the future would hold, but it would at least make me stop and think about some of the things I did and the choices I made, even if I couldn't make different ones or they were already made for me. 

I wish I could go back and tell my younger self that the choices I would make that seem harmless or insignificant at the time, could and probably would define me as a person in my adult years. More specifically, choosing between Sonic and Mario as a kid would eventually help define me as a gamer later on in life, especially if video games would continue to be apart of my life in the future. 

I have a simple theory, really. I believe there are three different types of gamers. There are Nintendo fanboys, there are gamers that absolutely despise and hate Nintendo, and then there are the gamers that are just indifferent. Obviously, everyone will fall into on of these three categories, but if you think about it, what group you belong to in this list also goes a long way in describing your gaming habits, despite how non-specific they may be 

Gamers who are indifferent towards Nintendo tend to be pretty open about their game choices, and usually play a wide variety of games and platforms, especially the new hotness and whatever games are reviewed and hyped up the best. Nintendo fanboys love the Big N to death, and the company usually can't do any wrong, especially with their IP's. They also seem to be far less cynical about games in general, usually trying to find the positives before bashing them for whatever flaws they may have. Nintendo haters are on the complete opposite side of the fence, as their game choices tend to always be more "hardcore" and mature than whatever kind of games Nintendo is putting out. They are usually cynical, bitter and quite negative about games as a whole. 

Clearly you should be able to figure out which side of the fence I sit on. 

So like I said before, these are all dependent on which character you chose to gravitate towards and defend endlessly as a kid. Some kids chose Sonic, other kids chose Mario, and some kids just didn't care for either one, or liked them equally. Of course, most kids didn't have the choice, as their parents made it for them by getting them one video game system or the other. Whether you were a Nintendo owner or a Sega owner, your allegiance lay with what system you owned. And that, as I theorize, goes on to accurately define you as a gamer later on. '

For me, obviously, I grew up on Nintendo consoles. I did have a couple of friends who owned Sega Genesis', but I wasn't good enough friends with them to get much play time with their game systems, especially games like Sonic The Hedgehog. It wasn't until very late in my life that I ever fully experienced this game, the first in the Sonic series. As a kid, I was always intrigued by it, but honestly, it only made me want to go home and play more Mario. 

Going back and playing it again, it made me think about how because I shunned Sonic, and overall just didn't have much time to enjoy it, I grew up to be a Nintendo fanboy. But that isn't what this week is about, not at all. No, in this week, I want to actually play all these Sonic games that I either missed or didn't care about before, because let's be honest. Sonic is one of the most recognizable and influential video game characters ever, and despite him taking a back seat to Mario over the years, I still feel it is pertinent and respectful to pay homage to the blue blur. 

Besides, I'm a Nintendo guy, remember? I always look at the video game cup as being half full, even if that means writing about the character and brand that almost toppled the Nintendo empire single handily, 

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