My Life in Video Games: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Nineteen-ninety-two saw some pretty significant video game releases. Super Mario Kart, Kirby’s Dream Land and Mortal Kombat all kicked off long-running, successful franchises. Dune II and Alone in the Dark set the blueprints for the RTS and survival horror genres respectively. And I myself also made my debut on the market.

As the video games industry and I grew alongside each other, gaming came to play a significant role in my life. Video games were at one point or another my go to pass time, a drain on my pocket money, my in-car entertainment, a way to hang out with my friends, a way to make new friends, and even something to write about on the mandatory blog any wannabe journalist has to put together.

Now, at 25 years old, my relationship with games is very different to what it once was. Living in London, working and making time for friends and family leaves little room for the four hour gaming marathons I used to enjoy. In fact, weeks and even months sometimes pass without me playing anything at all.

I’ve also found myself less and less aligned with those who do play games. Lots of online obsessives seem to hold gaming as one of the top priorities in their lives, and some online communities are downright toxic. Forums for specific games often become hubs of negativity, where the people commenting seem at times to downright hate the games they play so much. It’s this kind of stuff that makes me nowadays reluctant not only to talk about games, or to even admit to playing computer games at all.

I don’t know if I’ll ever really get back into gaming. I’ve been at a bit of a crossroads recently thanks to the fact that finally, for the first time in forever, I’m making enough money that I could buy myself a console, or upgrade my laptop to something that wont lag out on Minesweeper. I’ve toyed specifically with the idea of getting a Switch, given the glowing reviews for Odyssey and Breath of the Wild.

The reason I’m struggling is because I can’t shake the feeling that every hour I sink into gaming is another hour I’m in my room, by myself, locked away from the world. I can’t get avoid the fact the world sees gaming as anti-social, and can’t help wondering if it has a point.

But I also can’t just ignore how video games have been such a positive, good thing to have in my life. I’ve got so many great memories of mornings where me and my sister would rush downstairs to play Half Life:Decay in our dressing gowns, of lazy afternoons filled by creating custom maps on THPS4, and of long nights spent dicking about on GTA with friends. And I’m wary of forsaking this good, fun thing just because the world has convinced me that playing games is something anti-social, to be moved on from when you’re a big boy.

It’s at this crossroads that I’ve felt compelled to kick off a series which has been floating around my head for a while. Video games, in the eyes of those who would draw me away from them, are mindless dopamine triggers which at their most harmless just exploit feedback loops to keep you playing, and at their worst cater to “the male fantasy” of sex and violence. But that’s not gaming as I know it, that’s not the gaming which has been the backdrop for so many happy memories. So I wanted to write something to help balance the narrative. To capture something of the feeling that pulls at me from those memories, to describe the experiences and the frustrations and the lessons and the joy that video games have been a part of. I guess this is my love letter to video games.

I’ve drawn up a list of games from throughout my life that hold a special place in my heart which I want to share my thoughts in. I won’t be writing reviews as such, I’m not qualified to do that and don’t understand well enough the technical aspects of game design to do a good job of it. But these are the games which have had some unique impact on me, or that have some memory or lesson or experience or that was worth having. I hope to share why I think these games were special, and why they were worth playing, at least for me.

Maybe at the end of it, I’ll have a sense of closure, understanding why games were such a fun part of my younger years, and why it’s time to move on. Or maybe I’ll find that, like any old friendship, it’s something that will take some effort to sustain, but will be worth it in the end. We’ll see.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Tails to my brother’s Sonic

Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s is one of those games that was so popular back in the day, and is so nostalgia laden, that pretty much anything that can play games will get a version of Sonic 2 made for it. I’ve got a Sonic compilation for the PS2 knocking about somewhere in my loft at home, it’s installed on my Dad’s Xbox 360, and it’s on my iPod too.

My child self wouldn’t be able to believe that at 25 I’d be able to play Sonic 2 pretty much any time I wanted. Partly that’s because I wouldn’t believe that a game which back then required a TV, a Sega Mega Drive and a game cartridge to play would one day be playable on a mobile phone. But also because Sonic 2, like all video games back then, was largely out of reach.

I’m the youngest of three in my family, and I imagine lots of younger brothers and sisters will sympathise when I say most of my early memories of video games are of me watching other people play them. You and your friends are too young to own consoles, so most of your experiences with games come from watching your older siblings and their friends play.

I remember my brother playing Half Life on our PC, my childminder’s daughter playing Rayman on her PS1, my family friends playing Crash Team Racing on their PS1, and my godparents’ kids playing Sonic 2 on their Mega Drive. All the time watching. Waiting. For my turn.

When your turn does come, it usually takes one of two forms, and both are disappointing. Scenario A is that after you, the youngest of the group, have sat and watched everyone else take their turn, the controller is finally passed to you (a lot of the time thanks to the intervention of an adult). The adrenaline hits. It’s your turn to take to the stage, your turn to try and beat the level with everyone watching.

Except they don’t. The moment the controller is passed to the little brother is the moment everyone else decides they’re bored. Suddenly everyone else has left to go do something else and you’re left alone (or maybe with a supportive sister if you’re lucky).

You still get to play the game, and it’s fun, but without everyone else cheering you on, it’s not the same. And to be fair to everyone else, they are kind of right to leave. You are too young to know what you’re doing. You suck.

Then there is Scenario B, the dud controller, which Sonic 2 provided the perfect setting for. In this case, one of the bigger kids carries on playing Sonic, but you’re invited to play alongside them as Tails. There are two characters on screen after all, so it makes sense for both to be controllable. You’re handed a controller and dive in.

This is pretty much the opposite of Scenario A. Here’s you’re right in the thick of the action — everyone is watching, and you feel the centre of attention.

You jump in, ready to help. You’ve watched other people, big people, playing as Tails before — albeit only ever on Sonic 3 — to pick up Sonic and carry him over obstacles.

But it doesn’t feel right. You try and help out, but you’re always left following after Sonic, who kills all the enemies and gets all the coins and power-ups first, leaving you to feed off the scraps he leaves behind. To make matters worse, Tails spends most of the time off-screen anyway as he’s shunted off every time Sonic spin-dashes, and when he returns he lowers himself agonisingly slowly to the floor. When he finally touches down and you are ready to have another go at doing something useful, off Sonic inevitably dashes again, sending Tails hurtling back to irrelevancy.

You’re young but you’re not stupid, and you have a deep suspicion you’re not really doing anything — you’re being fobbed off with what is essentially a dummy controlled to keep you quiet. All you’re really able to do is jump about pointlessly and wait for the boss fights, where you immediately die because you’ve not been able to collect any coins. But any time you ask, the others insist you’re just as involved in the game as Player 1.

So then you’re left with a choice. Either kick up a fuss, go complain to the adults that the others aren’t letting you play as Sonic, and then you’re back to scenario A, playing the game by yourself in an empty room.

Or you let yourself believe the lie.

It was never really a contest for me. Letting yourself feel, even for a moment, like a part of the group, the centre of attention, INVOLVED… who cares if you aren’t actually participating? They were willing to pretend you were, so why not play along?

In that way, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 summed up the experience of being the younger brother. You spend your early years always a few steps behind, always looking up, wanting to imitate what your older siblings do, but by the time you’ve successfully copied them at anything, they’ve already moved on.

Tails himself is a pretty good on-screen parallel for the younger brother. Always trying desperately trying to catch up with Sonic, but constantly thrown out of the picture as Sonic shoots ahead. In fact the game’s manual (according to Wikipedia) actually describes Tails as having idolised Sonic as a child, forever wanting to keep up with him as a result.

And that’s childhood if you’re the younger brother. You spend a lot of it playing catch up, following in your older siblings footsteps and trying to match their achievements.

But fortunately that doesn’t last forever. In Sonic 3 they gave Tails the ability to fly, something Sonic could never do, and it made people appreciate him in his own right (hence why older people actually played as Tails in Sonic 3). In the same way eventually the younger brother grows up, and finds that they too can be appreciated for their unique qualities, and their own path they’ve chosen.

And when this happens, you have that extra bit of appreciation of that ability to forge you own path, and your own uniqueness, thanks to all those years spent in Sonic’s shadow.