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With
this year marking the release of both Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, a worrying
trend seems to have stuck itself to new Sonic games; that of leveraging
‘classic’ imagery and sentiment as a crutch to stay relevant. This isn’t
entirely new, but it is an unsustainable method that will only yield returns
for so long before we get tired.
Sonic
Mania looks like a wonderful throwback to a time gone past, and looks well
worth playing – the reviews of the game agree with this point. But the problem
is in the game’s premise rather than its execution. It is part of a growing
number of ‘flashback’ titles that leverage a desire for Sonic to ‘go back to
his roots’ (a cliché phrasing of modern Sonic criticism if ever there was one).
How
sustainable is this idea, really? Between Sonic 4 episodes 1 and 2, Sonic
Generations, Sonic Mania, Classic Sonic’s return in Sonic Forces, not to
mention a huge number of re-releases on virtual console systems, how much
longer can SEGA milk what’s left of gamer’s nostalgia before gamers get bored
of this trend? We can only see remakes and re-releases of Green Hill Zone so
many times before it will inevitably lose its charm.
The
unfortunate fact is that despite major positive steps forward in the form of
Sonic Colours and Generations, the series still evokes an image of Bambi on
ice, with shaky foundations that look so horribly precarious it’s almost hard
to watch as the series goes on.
In its
struggle for an identity in modern times, Sonic’s leveraging of its classics
may have been a successful experiment, with the appearance of Classic Sonic in
Generations and Forces, but now the trend is quickly becoming a tired trope.
It’s time for gamers’ favourite hedgehog to drop these crutches and run – after
all, isn’t this what Sonic is best known for?
More
than anything, SEGA needs to reinvent Sonic’s identity, perhaps by looking at
current Sonic conventions and throwing them out of the window. The transition
wouldn’t be painless; many fans cling dearly to their nostalgic love of the
‘classic’ Sonic series that ended in the 90’s. But it won’t be long before this
love runs out and instead we groan every time we see SEGA march out Classic
Sonic only to expose him to further indignity. Let Classic Sonic rest now, and
perhaps nail the final coffin in Modern Sonic’s grave, and give us a true
reinvention of the character and his conventions before he winds up stuck in
that grave permanently.
Out
of all of the items on my list, Sonic is my personal pick. That is not to
under-rate the impact that the character has had on gamer culture over the
decades; I myself have blogged about how he has come to represent 90’s culture
to the point he has become a cultural cliché. But Sonic is my pick because he
represents my introduction to gaming. The first moment I ever played a game was
playing Sonic the Hedgehog for the Mega Drive.
The
potential of gaming was apparent to me from the start. Ever since I played
Sonic, I felt somewhat undersold by other media. I grew up much preferring to
receive a game of a movie than the movie itself. I loved the sense that I could
interact with worlds, and that was
gaming’s biggest selling point to me. I needed to engage with the world in a
practical sense and this was exactly what gaming, as an interactive medium,
offered to me.
Sonic
was a beautiful game, filled with colour and enjoyable. It offered everything
that was classically ‘video-gamey’ within its package; the high score chasing,
the nostalgic sounds, the collecting of rings, the secret levels where you
could collect Chaos Emeralds, the jumping on enemies, and the boss battles, and
last but not least, the central character himself running the show. As an
introduction to gaming, I couldn’t think of anything that was better for me
than Sonic, and I will always remember the numerous iconic moments of the first
game; the opening notes of Green Hill Zone Act 1, the noise of Sonic’s jump,
the terror of drowning in Labyrinthe Zone. For me, Sonic the Hedgehog was the
video game that had it all.
Prison Architect
As
my ‘post-Minecraft’ indie pick, it was a toss-up between this game, Don’t
Starve, and Subnautica. However, what made Prison Architect win the day was the
near-perfect tribute to Tycoon games of the past. I was someone who loved Theme
Park and Theme Hospital, and what Prison Architect offered was a modern update
of that familiar idea; management of some industry or service delivered with an
almost-comic, yet decidedly ‘gamey’ twist.
Prison
Architect, beyond that, is an excellent game, and one that even helped me to
easier understand concepts used in a Forensic Psychology class that I had at
university. It struck me, upon reading that class, just how accurately Prison
Architect portrayed the current theories on prisoner needs and their reactions. The way that the game’s
hidden depth demonstrated a fine attention to detail was astounding, not to
mention just how powerful the building was in the game. Just like Minecraft,
dedicated players could build anything they dreamed of, even using logic circuits.
Prison Architect has an astonishing level of attention to detail in every
little part of the game that you can think of, and I highly suggest watching the
YouTube series of developer diaries to show just how thought-out every concept
was in the game.
I
will always remember Prison Architect for being an excellent and fun
Tycoon-like game, that had a ton of depth and imagination behind almost every
concept, as well as being just an amazing value proposition for the price that
I paid compared to the hours of fun that I got back.
Honourable Picks:
I
don’t have time to gush about every game that I consider to be unforgettable;
this post has already gone on far too long as I have geeked out about so many
games that I love. But even so, I feel that I have left out so many important
games that have changed the way I look at gaming, or just were so damn good
they left that big an impression. That shows just how amazing this medium is,
and how much love I have for gaming in general! So, honourable mentions go to:
The
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: For being the game that introduced me to fantasy
games, and RPG mechanics. Prior to this, I had avoided RPG as a genre and this
game made me realise I was missing out.
Super
Mario 64: I would have included this on the list, but I feel everything has
been said about this game that could be said, and I can’t add anything to that
discussion. I loved the sense of adventure in this game as my first introduction
to Mario.
Sonic
Adventure: As Sonic the Hedgehog was already a pick, I don’t feel that I could
have gushed about this in a way that showed how significant Sonic was to my
early gaming days. It was a memorable game that, even though it’s aged badly,
was really fun in its time and a massive selling point for the Dreamcast.
Command
and Conquer: Red Alert 2: While I truly do count this game as among the best
I’ve ever played, I just don’t have enough enthusiasm for RTS as a genre to
really count it as such a massive impact on me as other games have been. It is
a wonderful game and I love playing with the Skirmish mode, it’s just omitted
because the other games on this list meant that much to me.
What
were some of your big memorable games that shaped the kind of gamer you are
today? I have gushed for over 2000 words on this and I still feel that I could
go on about these amazing experiences. I think that you can tell a lot about a
person by what games they consider to be the most significant, so I feel like this
has truly opened my heart and let you know about a big part of my life. Sorry
for the huge post, but I really hope you find some value in this!
One of my previous blog posts was why I wanted to forget about a game (Pokémon) so
that I could play it again for the first time. I figured that it would be good
to do a follow up post about games that I find unforgettable, either because of
the time of my life when I played them or because they represented such a
significant shift that made them totally important to me as a gamer.
This
list is, of course, going to be mostly just a few titles with a lot of
overthinking between each one, as per my usual method. Of course, this is all
from my own perspective; games, like any other media, do not exist in a cultural
vacuum and suck in all kinds of associations, good or bad, of the world around
them. Why don’t you let me know what games you find unforgettable? I want to
test out my commenting system after all!
Minecraft
The
first game that is on my list is also one of the most obvious. Minecraft is
such a massive title, so many millions of gamers play it daily and it has made
entire YouTube careers for some people. Minecraft is one of those titles that
has totally threaded itself into the public consciousness, so much so that many
would consider it more as a phenomenon than as an actual game. You may roll
your eyes at reading this, as the block-building game is one of the most talked
about, unavoidable things on the Internet, much to the annoyance of many, but
that is exactly why its impact cannot be understated.
For
me, however, Minecraft’s big impact predates it hitting the big public
consciousness, and is less about the mainstream phenomena and more about the
game itself and what it represented and came to represent. For me, Minecraft
represented a shift that gaming needed.
Looking
at the time before Minecraft was available to the public (2009, almost 8 years
ago…), there was a big problem in gaming regarding creativity. Gamers
everywhere were fatigued with Call of Duty rip-offs and generic FPS titles, and
it felt like gaming was at risk of becoming stagnant. This video, released just a few years later, attempted to pull apart the reasoning behind this fatigue.
Minecraft
certainly didn’t solve the issue of innovation in gaming; if it had, the video
that I had linked wouldn’t have been made. However, it had started a trend towards innovation. Between all of the ‘me-too’
copies and survival games that came out trying to emulate the success of gaming’s
newest darling, what Minecraft showed was that indie gaming was viable.
Pre-Minecraft, yes there were a few indies, but not at the level that it is
now. I think that Minecraft was the smoking gun that launched the rise of indie
gaming to the level that it has gotten to now, for better or for worse.
Why
else I won’t forget Minecraft as a game? That reason is simple; it is a good
game. I loved it, the charm of the graphic design (again, a show of aesthetic
over horsepower), the satisfying loop of mining and crafting, the music and the
sense of doing something productive, turning what would otherwise be hours
spent shooting monsters into hours spent making
something, even if nobody got to see what I made, at least I made it. It was a paradigm shift in
terms of the trend and in terms of the game, and I love it for that.
On
top of that, Minecraft was enjoyable and relaxing. It was a game that
understood that games can be played to unwind. For a long while, my go-to
option when booting up a PC and trying to decide what game to play was to shrug
my shoulders and play Minecraft until I made my choice. It had a very easy
point of access.
For
me, Minecraft represents gaming in its purest form; discovery, creativity,
enjoyment and relaxation, and ultimately coming away feeling like you got something out of the whole experience.
That is why I find it an unmissable, unforgettable game.
Halo: Combat Evolved
I spoke previously about Halo: CE as an excellent co-op split-screen title, and that is part
of why it is on the list; the multiplayer aspect of the game has been some of
the purest fun that I have had with other gamers, ever, and the maps are so
memorable I still have the memory of how Blood Gulch looks in my mind’s eye to
this day.
But
the second part on why I put it on this list is because of the time my Xbox 360
red-ringed; lacking a current-gen machine I was forced to play the original
Halo on the original Xbox. However, that was where I discovered a love for the
single player campaign. For the time, the graphics may not have been at the top
of what the generation could offer, but the atmosphere, the use of colour, and the
way the sound melded into the gameplay, rendered the experience one of the best
I have ever had in a single player campaign. My favourite time in Halo will
always be flying a Banshee across a snowbound crevasse at twilight.
Halo
is on this list because it is overall a great game that is brilliantly made and
designed, and while it isn’t particularly
amazing or paradigm shifting as other games, it is still very worthy of
praise for being just a good game.
Pokémon Red and Blue
The
reason that I blogged about this being a game I want to forget is because this
game is so unforgettable. That is a strange statement to say, but so much about
the game was so iconic that the enjoyment of any Pokémon game is subject to criticisms
of the game being formulaic. So much about the original Pokémon games were so
memorable that they created a formula that was as instantly cliché as it was
iconic, like the ‘I am your father’ moment of The Empire Strikes Back; if any
other property attempted to do the same thing as Pokémon it would result in a
lot of eye-rolls and derision, much like how any attempt to pull off a villain
being a hero’s father in a film is incredibly difficult thanks to the fame of
the given example. This is probably why it is difficult to find a Pokémon clone
that truly captures the original’s magic.
Pokémon
was uniquely placed in the time that it was significant, and is so wrapped up
in its time that it has been used as a descriptor for a generation of people.
It is telling that one of the greatest fads of mobile gaming hit at just the
right age to capture the generation that were the right age for it to become a
fad on mobile. It may have been excellent marketing, but I think that there was
something so magical about the first two games that I have already gushed
about; the sense of adventure, of coming of age and becoming stronger, the
strong relationships developed with the Pokémon themselves thanks to the design
of the game, the collect-‘em-all gimmick along with creature variety so wide
enough to make it vital, the music, the graphics, all of it was so uniquely Pokémon that it became a massive, significant
part of many gamers’ lives, mine included.
