The Noyse Entertainment

MY YEAR
​OF GAMING

I played 365 different games over the span of one calendar year. And I wrote about it. 
  • Home
    • My Year Of Gaming
  • BLOGS
    • MAKING NOYSE
    • WRESTLING
    • GAMES
    • FILM & TV
    • KITCHEN
  • PODCASTS
  • PHOTOGRAPHY
  • REDUCED REVIEWS

12/9/2013

Day 343, Game 343 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2

1 Comment

Read Now
 
Picture

Picture
Growing up, as I wrote about before, I strictly had Nintendo game consoles. I never had a Sega Genesis or any other Sega console, like the Sega Game Gear. I was perfectly content with my Nintendo, as having multiple consoles back then wasn't exactly a common thing, especially for a kid my age. It was one or the other, and despite what you think you remember about that time in game history, there was a point when Sega actually owned more of the gaming market share than Nintendo did. That seems completely crazy, but thanks in part to the crazy popularity of the blue blur known as Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega systems were actually more prevalent than Nintendo's. 

Crazy part is, I knew very few kids that actually owned anything Sega related. Maybe I just gravitated towards fellow Nintendo fans, or maybe it was just sheer coincidence, but regardless, my experience with Sega's were limited to say the least. There was one kid who I considered a good friend, although we hardly ever hung out outside of school. Anyway, I remember one day he brought his brand new Game Gear to school that he had just received as a "present." It was Christmas or his birthday or anything like that, but rather just another day like every other. I was confused as to why exactly he got a present, as I was quite jealous, and discovered that him and his family were Jehovah's Witnesses. 

This meant that they didn't celebrate holidays or birthdays, and in lieu of that, his parents would randomly buy him presents for no reason other than it was the right thing to do since he wasn't getting anything on the normal days that other kids would be. I'm sure it wasn't easy for him, and despite his faith he would have liked to get presents like every other kid. Either way, he had a Game Gear, and while I wasn't entirely sure why, I was jealous, if only because it was something cool that I didn't have. He was a huge Sega fan, and loved Sonic to death, as he was always drawing him, talking about him and hating on Mario. 

When Sonic 2 came out, I of course knew little about it. This was of course before the heyday of the internet, where video game information was super easy to obtain. Other than magazines, we learned everything about video games that we knew from friends. As archaic as it sounds - and trust me, it was - I almost am envious of those days and how simple and stress free they were. All I knew about this game was what my friend told me. He taught me how to draw Sonic and his new friend Tails, and despite my lack of intimate knowledge of them, I knew I liked them for being different. 

Sonic was the equivalent of the cool kids in school, and Mario was the nerdy kids, who might have had a better future in store for them, but in the moment, all they wanted to be was equal with the cool kids.

Anyway, it wasn't until I went over to another friend's house, who I can't even remember how I was friends with him, was it until I played Sonic 2 on a console. Playing with Tails was fun, as it was a nice change of pace for an alternate or second character to have different moves and abilities and overall just play differently than the main character. I still couldn't help think then that while I liked the characters and the premise for the game, it just wasn't as fun. It was too fast, too wild, too hard to control, and made me think everything was just a speed run and not actual levels you would need to traverse like normal platformers in order to beat them.

Playing it again makes me feel this all over again. It is a fun game, and it's fun to revisit the cool things they introduced into gaming, but ultimately, I feel like it is just trying too hard to make something different than the "norm." A two-tailed fox is perfect for being original, but as a Nintendo fan, it may have been cool back in the day, but now, it's still trying to live in the past.

And you're lucky, dear readers. I had a "what does the fox say?" joke lined up that I never used. You're welcome. 

Share

1 Comment
Annie
12/14/2013 01:33:16 am

It's weird when I was little I had kind of the opposite experience; I didn't really know about the existence of anything other than the sega genesis. My sister and I saw one at a friend's house and saved up to get one. I don't think it entered our minds that there were alternatives. Sonic 2 was our first game (and for a long time our only game). We played the heck out of it. I would have defended it to the death at the time, and scorned mario games as looking boring and way too slow, but looking back it is easy to see the faults and how and why the Mario games have been more enduring.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

Details

    RSS Feed

    Gamer Tags

    XBLA = The Noyse
    PSN = the_noyse
    NNID = The Noyse

    3DS F.C. = 3007-8109-2329
    STEAM = TheNoyse

    FEEL FREE TO FRIEND ME!

    Stats

    Games played for project : 365
    --------------------------------------------
    Systems played on: 
    NES = 10
    PS Vita = 27
    PS3 = 92
    Wii U = 63
    Xbox 360 = 41
    iPhone = 17
    Kindle Fire = 2
    Nintendo DS = 2
    N64 = 2
    Nintendo 3DS = 24
    Arcade = 3
    SNES = 9
    PC = 31
    GameCube = 6
    iPad = 15
    Sega Genesis = 4
    OUYA = 2
    PS4 = 9
    Xbox One = 7
    --------------------------------------------
    Total time played for project: 
    600 hours

    Archives

    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    3ds
    Angry Birds
    Arcade
    Assassin's Creed
    Batman
    Bioshock
    Board Games
    Commodore 64
    Disney
    Donkey Kong
    Dreamcast
    Ds
    Dsiware
    Ea Sports
    Eshop
    Gameboy Advance
    Gamecube
    Gears Of War
    General
    God Of War
    Gta
    Halo
    Ios
    Ipad
    Killzone
    Kindle Fire
    Kinect
    Legend Of Zelda
    Lego
    Mario
    Marvel
    Mega Man
    Metal Gear
    Metroid
    Mobile
    N64
    Nes
    Nintendo
    Op-Ed
    Ouya
    Pc
    Pinball
    Playstation
    Pokemon
    Ps2
    Ps3
    Ps4
    Psn
    Psp
    Ps Vita
    Punch Out
    Punch-out
    Ratchet & Clank
    Rayman
    Resident Evil
    Sega Genesis
    Skylanders
    Sly Cooper
    Snes
    Sonic
    Star Wars
    Steam
    Super Smash Bros.
    The Walking Dead
    Uncharted
    Virtual Console
    Wii
    Wii U
    Wwe
    Xbla
    Xbox
    Xbox 360
    Xbox One
    X-Men

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
    • My Year Of Gaming
  • BLOGS
    • MAKING NOYSE
    • WRESTLING
    • GAMES
    • FILM & TV
    • KITCHEN
  • PODCASTS
  • PHOTOGRAPHY
  • REDUCED REVIEWS