It’s been a while since we’ve taken part in Gaming Banter, but we’re back to participating in the monthly gaming site exchange of opinions.
Eetsa-me!
It was the early 90′s. I was a dedicated NES gamer and Mario was my mascot of choice. In the morning I ate Mario Bros. cereal from the Nintendo Cereal System in my Super Mario feety PJ’s, always making sure that my stuffed Super Mario doll had a bowl. Together we would watch The Super Mario Super Show starring Captain Lou Albano. I read Super Mario Comics from the Nintendo Comics System and had a Super Mario Bros. clock on my wall that looked like a giant watch. I thought Mario was the coolest mascot that could ever be… that is until a blue blur completely changed my perceptions of the word “cool”.
Twenty years have passed and I can still remember the first time I ever saw him in action. I was watching TV when a commercial came on for the new video game. It showed a blue cartoon hedgehog running on a treadmill while a scientist in a lab coat took notes on his clipboard. A closeup of this mysterious animal’s feet showed that they were beginning to move faster and faster. All of a sudden he burst off the treadmill and through a wall. Papers blew everywhere and the scientist’s glasses flew off his face. The camera went through the hole to show the hedgehog was already at the end of the street and about to disappear into the horizon. They then showed a few seconds of gameplay and the game’s title: Sonic the Hedgehog.
I was hooked. I had to have it. I had to have this game that was “16 Bits of power that make that fat plumber look like he’s standing still!” as another commercial had told me. From that moment on, my Christmas list said “SEGA Genesis with Sonic game” and nothing else. I didn’t want anything else that year and I told my parents that every chance I got. In fact I didn’t “want” a Genesis, I “needed” a Genesis. They knew I was serious when one day my dad asked me if I wanted a Super Mario Bros. alarm clock we saw at Hills department store and I said “Mario sucks now dad. Sonic kicks his butt all day long!”. My dad looked at me like I was speaking Spanish. “You don’t like Mario anymore??” he finally said with a puzzled face. “Nope. SEGA does what NintenDON’T” I told him with a smile.
An actual picture of the event. Not at all photoshopped.
Christmas morning came and there were lots of gifts under the tree. I looked around but none of them were big enough to contain something called “Blast Processing”. After I finished opening all my gifts my dad asked if Santa had brought me everything I had asked for. “All my gifts are great but he did forget one thing I really really wanted this year” I told him with a half frown. “Well Santa did leave one more gift for you. He ran out of wrapping paper so he put it in my bedroom closet. You should go see what it is”. I ran upstairs like I was Sonic after a chaos emerald. I flung open the closet door and there it was in all its beauty, a Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehog packed in. At that moment I could identify with Sonic and why he ran so fast all the time. He needed those rings like I needed that Genesis. We were like best friends that had never met, soul mates in a completely non-romantic kinda way. A bond was formed that still exists to this day.
As Sonic has grown so have I. If it wasn’t for Sonic’s love of chili dogs on the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday morning cartoon I would have never tried them because as a kid they looked like “yucky hotdogs with poo on them”. I used a Sonic Graphic Novel as a book report in the 8th grade and got a “A” because I had read it a hundred times and knew it in and out so the report ended up being ten pages longer then it needed to be. And now two of my kids have Sonic posters hung up in their rooms and watch my old Sonic DVDs.
I could go on for days about how much Sonic has meant to me but instead I’ll end by just saying… “Thank you Sonic”.
Other posts this month
Pioneer Project: The importance of character creation
Silvercublogger: Will Sing Opera For Italian Food
Game Couch: Gabriel Knight
Aim for the Head: Friends Through The End
Next Jen: I’d Rather Be Me
carocat.co.uk: A rushed love letter
This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part, please email him for details.
Wow, I enjoyed the hell out of this article. Even though I never betrayed my plumber friends, I think you did a damn good job of capturing the essence of being a kid back then. Kids These Days, now, with their DSes and crap. Psh. They don’t know what a real system was!
Sincerely,
The Grumpy Old Man
If it weren’t for the Genesis, I wouldn’t have had to hear you sing “Make Believe Reborn” over and over?
I need a time machine.
Haha, it’s like you’re me! My experience growing up was almost exactly the same, I was obsessed with Sonic when I was younger and it effected my gaming tastes and preferences right into adulthood I am sure.
I find the divide between Sega and Nintendo gamers in that 1990s period extremely interesting, it’s interesting looking back and trying to piece together why I thought like that, why it was so important that I was of the Sega faction.
All it makes me do now is smile, because they were extremely happy times.
Perhaps it’s because I’m a few years older, but though I owned a Nintendo and a Sega, I was never a plumber or a hedgehog… I was an Atari kid. Pitfall Harry and Yar’s Revenge to the end.
I’m with Jason — 2600 FTW. I also had a Commodore 64 so I missed most of the early console stuff, but when it comes to retro gaming, I like Mario.
The first system I ever had was a 2600 but I never connected to it like I did with my NES or my Genesis.