A Monologue about A Hedgehog (part 1)

This past November, Sonic the Hedgehog turned 20 years old. If there's anything to make you feel old, it's a statement like that. Not a lot of game characters have withstood the test of time like he has, and to come back from what might be the worst franchise drought in history, is incredible just by itself let alone still being around afterward. I'm speaking of course about Sonic Generations, which ironically features not only the modern day Sonic, but the classic Sonic that most people are fond of. Funny how Generations is being called "the game that saved Sonic", huh?

Other than that, to speak kindly of Sonic would be to mainly refer to his games on the Sega Genesis, which I personally played the hell out of all of them, but mostly Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and especially both at the same time when you could combine the two cartridges into one mega game that intersected after you beat one half. Imagine if that could be done today. Mega Mario Galaxy anybody?

There were other nostalgic games for the Genesis like Sonic CD and a few spinoffs like Sonic Spinball, a pinball game that used Sonic as the pinball, but they certainly didn't sell as well as the main adventure games.

(In case you haven't noticed by now, I'm LARGELY paraphrasing the history of this personally beloved hedgehog here, so just roll with me if you could).

After gaming left the early 90's and leaped into the third dimension (the REAL third dimension, not the Sega Saturn one), Sonic had to find a way to mix his speed-style gameplay with 3D platforming. It worked a little bit at first with Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 on the late Sega Dreamcast. Some found it interesting to finally see their blue blur come to life, complete with full voice acting and explorable environments, while others didn't know what to make of it. By the time handheld games arrived at large in the late 90's and early 00's, Sonic swept the scene with some good two-dimensional titles that reminded us of years past, showing that the hedgehog still was alive and kicking.

But then, something happened.

Firstly, Sega made Gamecube ports of both Adventure games, both of which I didn't really mind, but then a little game came out called Sonic Heroes at the beginning of 2004. I played it, and it felt very different. Not just different gameplay-wise, but different in a way where you get a feeling of uneasiness and unfamiliarity, like you're afraid of the dark even though you know nothing is out there. The game wasn't perfect, but it at least had a creative new take on its levels where you had a team of 3 Sonic characters performing different functions on levels, aside how much sense it didn't make for a Sonic game. Pictured below is probably why I had the feeling I had.

Now, what happens next is pretty obvious, and I'm going to save it for another post. I need to find the exact wording I'm going to use for the inevitable tidal wave of shit that I'm going to talk about, as it is the elephant in the room whenever you talk about Sonic that always needs to be addressed (no matter how much you don't want to). In the meantime, go copy the above picture of "Team Rose", print it out, then tape it to your favorite dartboard and proceed with a rousing game of darts.

Bonus points if you hit Big the Cat below his fat belt buckle.

From Demons to Pandas

World of Warcraft. The name alone is enough to send half the internet into an uproar of praising and rioting, while the other half sits there and stares in either awe or disgust.

I have to give credit where it's due: Blizzard knows their stuff when it comes to making video games. Not only have they made and maintain probably the most successful MMO in history, but they have spawned other franchises alongside it like Starcraft and Diablo that hold their own incredibly large fanbases by themselves. When put together, that's a lot of freakin' people.

Yet, as of this moment, I can say with absolute near-confidence that I am bored.

Yeah yeah, Diablo 3 isn't out yet and Starcraft 2 is having an expansion soon, but WoW is a different breed of Blizzard game. It's based on one of their first successful games that they ever released, and if we count the years from then, the story has been going for 17 years now. Starcraft and Diablo have been around for a long time too, but Warcraft has had 3 RTS games and an MMO, with 1-2 expansions for the last two RTS's and the MMO about to have its fourth. To have a game franchise last that long with so many iterations and still make the amount of money it rakes in every year is nothing short of a miracle, and yet...why do I feel so underwhelmed?

I started playing in the second expansion, Burning Crusade, right around when Patch 2.3 came out. I was incredibly naive at the time, basically raiding Karazhan and Gruul's Lair all the time. It was a blast, especially when the next expansion came out. I had never experienced something like it before: starting fresh with everyone else, leveling up 10 more levels, going through each new raid tier in a guild, and everything else. It was an absolute blast.

But then...something happened. Things started getting more and more dull. Raiding started to feel like a chore. Other console and PC games that weren't MMOs were taking up more of my time. WoW started to seem like a hanging investment rather than a fun game filled with RPG goodness. I couldn't figure out why the game was becoming so boring and lifeless, yet I still kept raiding and playing into the Cataclysm expansion. Here I am, at the end of said expansion, at a crossroads.

I'm sure I'm not the first to arrive at this decision. One possible road has you still playing, either finding new and good ways to make the game fun again and enjoying the friends you've made over the years online, or outright failing and having a pretty good feeling of disappointment when you find that the risk you took was for nothing. On the other hand, you can outright quit and not take any risks at all, but you would be letting down the obligation you feel for your friends in the guild you've been in for so long, and letting such a long investment go so easily just doesn't sit right in your mind.

Luckily, Blizzard recently announced a feature called the Annual Pass, where if I agree to pay for WoW for the next year, I not only get a standard edition of Diablo 3 for free online (U jelly?), but I get a free invite to the next expansion's beta test.

Stop. The God. Damn. Presses.

This is exactly what I or anyone for that matter needs for making a concrete decision on staying. I can test the next expansion, and if I'm not impressed, I can leave. I have already agreed to pay for the next year, so even if I get a little nostalgic or some shit like that, I can login and do whatever until my subscription runs out. It's genius!

I got plenty more to say, but this post is already long enough. Maybe more a little later, which could be anywhere from tomorrow to whenever the hell I feel like it.

Give Me Liberty or Kingdom Hearts III

I freakin' love the Kingdom Hearts games.

While I should say that Square Enix isn't at their best right now (*cough* Final Fantasy XIV *cough*), one thing they did do right is take a seemingly huge risk at making a game that combined their own Final Fantasy characters and...Disney cartoons? Yep, and somehow, it really works out to be a wonderful adventure game with tons of memorable moments and a huge backstory.

Still, one has to wonder if the backstory is too huge. Aside from the first outing on the Playstation 2 and the later sequel, the continually expanding universe of Kingdom Hearts is nothing short of an extensive wikipedia article by now, and it will continue to grow from the release of several spin-off games on consoles that aren't the Playstation 3. That's not necessarily a bad thing; I played 358/2 Days and loved it on Nintendo DS, and it really explained the unexplained when it came to Roxas and Organization XIII. However, that happened before Kingdom Hearts 2, and while I am interested in knowing the whole story, the cliffhanger at the end of 2 is definitely more interesting to me.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be spin-off games (if you can even call them that), but in terms of the timeline of released titles, they sure are taking their sweet time making Kingdom Hearts 3. Yeah I know, the crew probably have more important projects to work on at the present moment, but that doesn't change the fact that there's a ton of fans out there like me who are anxious as hell to see what that note from King Mickey said instead of what happened in the past or between games. The very first game came out in 2002, and while Chain of Memories connected the first and second games and held its own pretty well for a digression in 2004, Kingdom Hearts 2 came out in 2006. Since then, there has been a PSP title, a Nintendo DS title, a 3DS title coming out next year, and...a mobile phone title? Okay...

It's almost 2012, and I'm kind of praying I can get to see Kingdom Hearts 3 before the world ends in a fiery ball of rumor-ridden death. Who knows though? Maybe Square Enix is secretly working with Valve in an undisclosed location, both developers crafting the hell out of their greatest games that the world has ever seen.

Yet, I can think of another game that we know a lot about, has a 3 in the name, is from a pretty famous developer, and that I really want to play. It'll cause a fiery hell to be unleashed when it finally launches, even though it's being caused by a Blizzard...

Yeah, that joke was terrible. 8D