Why Sonic sucks now - an observation.

(Also known as "Le Horrible Destin d'Sonique le Hedgehog.")


Something occurred to me last night.

I think I've actually realized a reason Sonic the Hedgehog lost popularity - and the answer isn't just "Uh, 'cause every Sega console post-Genesis was garbage." Basically, it all comes down to the fact that people just can't cope with change - and this change was specifically brought about by the unavoidable switch to 3D. No matter the difficulty of any level in a standard 2D Sonic game, the strategy was always dead simple: always head to the right and you'll get out.

While some very rare occasions changed this (Scrap Brain 3 in "Sonic 1" requires you to exit upwards, but given that you're presented with about seven springs in a row, if you can't figure that out, you don't deserve to be playing the game in the first place), the exit has ALWAYS been located at the rightmost point of the level. Some levels were linear and kept pushing you in the right direction, but in levels that made you go to the left or up or down, your first instinct was always to get to a place where you could go right again. There weren't even secret exits off the beaten path - there was *one* signpost (or boss), and it was always at the far right of the area.

But when did this simplistic design all start to go downhill? "Sonic 3D Blast." The comfortable, 2D view of the right side of Sonic was replaced by an awkward 3/4 view (ooh, Graphic Design term!), and the exit was SOMEWHERE in this polygonal, blocky area... but where exactly it was wasn't at all clear, because *it wasn't to the right*. Not only that, but most exits weren't even exits - most just took you elsewhere in the level, thus rendering our handy, lone signpost obsolete. Oh, and you couldn't just happily prance your little blue self through these exits - you went through when you were *allowed* to go through. Unless you made buddies with a bunch of little annoying birds, the exit was useless.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the most popular Sonic games nowadays aren't fancy 3D ones where Sonic turns into a werewolf (oh, I'm sorry, "werehog"), or those dark, emo Shadow the Hedgehog things... they're games like "Sonic Advance" and "Sonic Rush". Why? Because *those* are the types of games we're used to! Sonic runs in a straight line and the exit is at the far right! They throw as many gimmicks in there as possible (one of the "Sonic Advance" games has a level made of musical instruments that play when you touch them, for instance), but no matter how many gimmicks they throw in, the exit is at the far right. You can *never* say that you're permanently lost, because you know how to get out before you even see the level!

OK, case in point - the one Sonic level that the most people claim to get lost in is Sandopolis 2, in "Sonic and Knuckles." It's dark, it's vast, it's frustrating - and there's incredibly irritating ghosts. And what part of that level do people complain about the most? The section where you have to jump from one sand slide to the other. People don't know what to do. But look closely, because the answer is obvious: the slide you start out on takes you nowhere, because it's taking you *to the left*. The slide that actually advances you in the level takes you *to the right*. Don't slide back and forth for ten minutes and get frustrated (which happens) - get on the one that's going to the right! You should know by now that no matter what obstacles lie beyond the end of that slide, the exit will be obvious at some point if you just keep going in that direction. It's not going to change - even the upside down level (Death Egg 2), despite often making you go to the left, ends to the right.

So in a nutshell, a reason so many post-"Sonic and Knuckles" games are just considered crap on ice are because they frustrate us, all because they break one very simple convention. We want to go right, not 160 degrees to the left, over a building, through a loop, 75 degrees right, over a tree, etcetera, etcetera. Keep Sonic's blue ass out of view and keep him facing sideways!

That's my two cents.

Late night rambles #1

It's 2:01 AM, and I'm not particularly tired, and I don't particularly want to try and force myself to sleep, so I thought the best thing to do would be to just spew out whatever random thoughts might occur to me. :-)

* I'm listening to "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" for probably the 550th time in my life, this time because it happened to be on my iTunes... two things occurred to me. One, that this would make great music to accompany some sort of large-scale police bust of a psychopath in a movie; and two, that it's already been done. (I was momentarily unaware that I pretty much pictured the ending to the late Eighties "Silence Of The Lambs" prequel, "Manhunter." There's a big scene where the crazy guy roughs up a blind girl to the accompaniment of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" while the cops surround his house.)

* Anyone who hated Chumbawamba because of "Tubthumping" could potentially find more fodder for their hatred - they covered "The Chicken Dance." And I don't mean that I was on Limewire and found a mislabeled cover version claiming to be by Chumbawamba; I mean, they actually covered it. I don't know why. Of course, since they're English, it wasn't "The Chicken Dance," it was "The Birdy Song." Either way, I want to see a group of aging anarchists flap their arms and shimmy! Speaking of Chumbawamba... I wasn't aware until recently that, after their stint as 'one hit wonders' in America (I still hate calling them that, it's so cruel), they came back a couple years later and tried to have another go with "She's Got All The Friends That Money Can Buy," another song in the "Tubthumping"/"Amnesia" mold. It did nothing. It was the equivalent of Tag Team's "U Go Girl" - same formula, unimpressed audience. (In the opinion of this particular Chumbawamba obsessive, its source album, "WYSIWYG," wasn't that great to begin with. It's cliche to say it, especially in the US, but "Tubthumper" did just happen to be one of their best albums.)

* I've heard it said that you have to be gay to appreciate Abba. If you think that, fuck you. You know why? "Take A Chance On Me." Great song. Besides, Anna-Frid (the brunette) was hot. I know, most people like Agnetha, the blonde; but Anna-Frid has that classic Seventies hot English girl look. Which is odd, because she's Swedish. Come to think of it, the brunette in Ace Of Base was pretty good looking too. What ever happened to Ace Of Base anyway? I mean, I couldn't stomach most of their songs, but still... they fell off the American map pretty fast. They did have one song that I really do like, though - "The Juvenile", originally written as "The Goldeneye." (Guess which movie it was written for! Didja didja?!) Buuut, it was on an album that came out long after "The Sign" did, so no one heard it.

* Are film companies stupid? I mean, seriously... they're supposedly deadset against movie piracy, obviously equating piracy with some guy sneaking a Digicam into a theater. However, they also distribute screener DVD's, with brand new films in crystal clear quality. It's unreasonable to think that not *one* of these screeners will fall into the hands of an everyman with access to either P2P or BitTorrent. They do. Sure, I mean, they've tried copy-protected screeners (I believe one of the recent Bonds came on a self-destructing disc... "Die Another Day", I believe?), but that seems to be very rare. Just a thought... I just don't understand how the entertainment industry works sometimes. Like, for example, Weird Al's "Straight Outta Lynwood." Hell was raised because his previous album "Poodle Hat" leaked a couple days in advance by some hooligans, but then "SOL" came out as a promo at LEAST a month before the commercial release. Most of us at weirdalforum at it long before it hit stores. (Don't get uppity at me, I bought the damn thing the day it came out, too.) My point of this whole long paragraph? STOP PROMO COPIES! YOU'LL PREVENT LEAKS! That applies to both the movie and music industries! If you don't put it out half a year in advance, no one can steal it!

* That's right, I never finished reviewing the Jay and Silent Bob series... I should, I'm long done with them. I dunno when I'll get around to it, but I'll say this - "Clerks II" really stands up well on its own, or just as a sequel to one film; but when you watch the Askewniverse series in order, it's such a huge anticlimactic ending. But I really enjoy it on its own. Kind of like "Smile" within the rest of the Beach Boys canon... on its own, it's a masterpiece. But in between the rest of their albums, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

* Why do people associate the Bee Gees with "Stayin' Alive" and ONLY "Stayin' Alive"? That always bugged the crap out of me. I mean, as a group and as solo artists, they've churned out fifty albums, and have composed over a thousand songs... and people only remember them for a song in a raunchy movie that wasn't even on any of their albums?! It also bugs the crap out of me that they're only remembered as "that disco group", when their disco period was short lived. (All of their truly 'disco' output falls between 1975 and 1979. Not a big chunk of a career that lasted from 1958 to what, 2001?)

* For "Doctor Who" fans... did you ever notice how all the best black and white stories are the ones that were burnt? I'm not being snide or anything, I'm serious - look at the missing Patrick Troughton stories alone. "The Macra Terror," "The Faceless Ones," "The Power Of The Daleks," and the repeatedly-mentioned "Fury From The Deep" are all missing. And all are absolutely awesome, if reconstructions tell us anything. (Which, given the accuracy of Loose Cannon's output, they should.) But look at the Troughton stories that still exist - "The Dominators," "The Ice Warriors" (okay, so it's kind of missing), "The Krotons"... weird, trippy garbage. "The Krotons" is like the Doctor Who story they wrote on acid. Even William Hartnell, who has more surviving episodes, is without his supposed best stories - "The Daleks' Master Plan" for instance. A twelve (or thirteen, depending on what you count) episode epic that was pure awesomeness. I mean, what other story ended with characters running through a forest, aging to death?! We might never see that scene in moving form. Thanks a lot, the BBC's Pamela Nash.

* Did anyone actually *own* a Sega CD? I know one person that actually did, but it seems to have been extremely unpopular. Shame... I mean, it did have "Sonic CD" for it... which, admittedly, I haven't played much of, but come on, it has the "Sonic Boom" song!

Okay, my laptop battery is running out... I should go. :-)