Hedgehog With Attitude!

Remember the days? The days when THIS sound used to brighten your day regardless of the circumstance?!

If you were one of the kids of the 90s who had the luxury of growing up with a Sega Mega Drive in your house, you'll know what I mean when I talk about "Sega Nostalgia!" We were spoiled with the choice of games, such as the epic "Fifa 90", the chain swingin' "Road Rash", and "Bubsy" the bobcat along with sooo many others. Along with this privelige of owning a sega, came a certain degree of loyalty to the product too. It seems as though most of us with a Mega Drive in our posession, were often less likely to acknowledge the brilliance of Nintendo and their respected counterparts to everything that Sega had on offer. But to be honest, looking back on it now with more objective adult eyes, I still think Sega were on to a winner with the Mega Drive. It was hands down better than the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and it seems clear that the only reason that Nintendo won the battle between the two in the end was because of Sega's repeated "Dropping the ball" when it came to future consoles like the Saturn and the Dreamcast.

Fair enough, the SNES had Mario Kart, Mario All Stars, Mario Tennis and...uh...all those other fucking Mario spin-off's...but then on the other end of the spectrum, Sega were offering Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Earthworm Jim and a whole mess of other shit that was just awesome at the time. The graphics looked dynamic, the gameplay was fun and for the most part the games were a hell of a lot more violent (and as such, fun) than the toddler friendly SNES games.

Dogpiling was common in "Streets of Rage", as was shooting, blowing shit up, random stabbings, and the police fucking shit up with a bazooka...which begs the question, "Why do the teenage characters need to be doing this to begin with?"

I remember whenever we were playing 2 player "Golden Axe", none of my mates (me included) wanted to play as the girl, and therefore, more often than I care to remember, there were arguments over who would get to play as "Santa"...Santa of course referring to the little white bearded Viking character who's only resemblence to jolly old Saint Nick was said white beard.

I guess he COULD be Santa...maybe...it is quite polite the way he chooses to bash the bad guy over the head with the butt of the axe as opposed to decapitating him with it ...Wouldn't want to make his naughty list regardless.

Now to be fair, not all the games were great...in fact a lot of them were absolute pants to put it mildly. Games like "Greendog", and "Daffy Duck in Hollywood" had no business sharing the same sacred console as the games mentioned above. Even this game was fucking legendary compared to the likes of Greendog!

Hold B and Backwards and you could even do the fucking moonwalk! No joke! This game was pure win!

But the thing that MADE Sega for me, the absolute be all, end all...the one thing that really made Sega stand out from the Nintendo, was Sonic The Hedgehog. In fact, the very first time that I was ever even sat down in front of a games console, this was the very frist image I saw.

I was mesmerised. There was no way anything other than Sonic the Hedgehog was going to occupy my every thought for the next coupole of years. I absolutely adored all things Sonic, including every conceivable cash-in they could think of. From the toys to the bed sheets, to the awful, but memorable cartoons. In fact I remember really liking the really colourful one more than the darker themed one that seemed to run simultaneously, but I do remember liking the theme song from the darker show better. Remember these?

Anyway, times change, and so do people... but this little guy will always represent some truly fond memories for me, and I went ahead and downloaded Sonic 4 for the XBOX 360 recently just for shits and giggles...turns out, it's nay half bad. Pretty much back to basics for Sega! A teeny, tiny step in the right direction.