It must have been about fourth grade. My parents and I were at 7 Mile Fair, which (for you non-Racinians) is a huge flea market.
It was there that I saw it. A beautiful halo of light drew me to it. A used Sega Genesis, for about eighty dollars.
I remember at the time thinking, "Oh my Gosh! I can buy this! I actually have enough money to buy it!" And so I did. It turned out to be one of the best and worst decisions I ever made.
The Genesis was a great console. Nintendo, you’ll always be #1 in my heart, but Sega... boy, the Genesis put up a good fight.
In retrospect, I would’ve done it differently. The Genesis is just so cool that it deserves to be bought new, with all its original packaging and glory. Sadly, I got conned by this vendor (who I recall very bitterly- I think something else happened then which made me distrust her). The console turned out to be complete crap, with poor image-quality (lines all over the screen, as if it was a bad TV reception instead of a video game) and substandard controllers.
(Ugh, don’t even get me started on controllers. Always buy brand-name controllers new. Not new third-party controllers. Not used brand-name controllers. New, brand-name controllers.)
I could live with the poor image-quality. It was good enough for my needs. I was a fourth grader who dished out eighty bucks for this thing, so I could force myself to live with it just so I didn’t have to regret my decision. (Ahh, now I know why I disliked that vendor. She wouldn’t give me a refund on the unit. Stupid ho.)
The controller... well, I had to get a new one. So I got one of them fancy-schmancy controllers that had the ability to adjust the speed of the game play. Oy. Did that thing ever cause me problems. It apparently was set to perma-slow. I could never play normal speed with that controller, no matter how much I adjusted the settings and smashed the controller against the cement driveway. Nothing seemed to work.
Now if I can recall correctly, the controller screwed up my whole unit so that the unit itself was locked into slow-mo. Something like that. Somehow, the evil spirits looming in my
But in every cloud lies a silver lining. Much good came from my Sega experience (overlooking the horror that is Animaniacs... hilarious cartoon, lousy game). I owned a fun little puzzle game called "Mickey’s Ultimate Challenge" which was enough to happily keep me occupied alone for a couple of hours. I also had a Power Rangers fighting game which was a lot of fun for about a week.
But of course, no Sega discussion is a Sega discussion without mention of... da da dah! Sonic! (And the much cooler, highly overlooked sidekick, Tails.)
I had, in my possession, the absolute best Sonic game of all time: Sonic 2. I think I also had Sonic 1, which was merely Sonic 2’s dorky little brother.
What made Sonic 2 so great? Three pseudo-words: Miles "Tails" Prower! My friends and I spent hours in front of that machine, switching off between Sonic and Tails. (We would argue over who got to be Tails!) Tails was the coolest 10-year-old around. No matter how much he got beat up, no matter how many times he fell in the lava, no matter how much Sonic tried to ditch him... Tails wouldn’t die. So whoever got to be Tails was the designated bodyguard, and would jump all over Dr. Robotnik at the end of every level as Sonic just tries to dodge his attacks. Tails was such a good buddy to Sonic.
I had a babysitter who would bring over Sonic Spinball... which is another of the great Sonic games. I could never get past the first level, but it was still so addicting. The babysitter let me keep her instruction booklet, as I’ve always been a video game instruction booklet aficionado.
Even after my Sega died, I kept the instruction booklets... Sonic 2 and Sonic Spinball. I didn’t think I’d ever get another Sega, but I just couldn’t bear to part with them. They held such great memories.
I had high hopes for the return of Sonic when one day, I entered Office Max (or was it Office Depot...?) and saw a Sonic collection for the PC, which included Sonics 1, 2, and 3. I even bought the Microsoft Sidewinder (a PC controller) at the same time, because I wanted to preserve the original integrity of the Sonic games as closely as possible.
The controller was a pretty good replication. The game was not. Not only was it not full screen (well, you could maximize the window, if you were willing to suffer the loss of image quality), but the game ran in fast-motion. Most of the time, I believe, things run slower on emulators than normally; it’s only natural, I suppose, that Sonic was the one to break that standard.
So all in all, that was a complete was of money.
Genesis came and went along with the Super Nintendo, then Game Gear, Gameboy Pocket, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Gameboy Color, and finally, about a decade later, we have arrived at the Gamecube era. Helloooooooo, Sonic Mega Collection!
I knew my instruction booklets haven’t seen the last of their days!
I tell you, this is one of the best fifty-dollar investments I ever made. (And then I got half of it back by forcing my brother to pay me for his massive usage.) Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic Spinball, Sonic 3-D Blast, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, and some other games I haven’t unlocked yet.
But most importantly, Sonic 2 and Sonic Spinball! Oh, the Lord works in mysterious ways.
/me is happy (and just for added emphasis: :-) )
I play this game with my brother now, who is hooked on Sonix (sorry, I failed to make a clever pun). We can zip through all of Sonic 2 like a... zipper. (Sorry, I failed to make a clever analogy.) At least up until the very last "Death Egg Zone," or whatever it’s called. I have yet to beat
But thanks to the internet, and
This game is also my first introduction to Sonic 3 (other than the crappy computer version I owned). Tails can fly Sonic to safety, and rescue him from drowning. Tails is more powerful than ever! bwa ha ha ha ha!
The graphics in games today may be more advanced, but nothing is more fun than replaying those 8x-bit video games from one's youth. (Assuming one was born in 1984.)