Gaming off the Beaten Path

It's recently come to my attention that this month marks Sonic the Hedgehog's 30th anniversary. Really makes you feel old. It's been a while since I covered Sonic, about two years at this point. The excellent Sonic Mania will go down in the annals of history as the inaugural winner of the "GOTBP Game of the Year" award. Who knows, maybe one day said award will actually mean something. Anyway, I do feel like sometimes I stray a little too far from my whole schtick of "playing forgotten games," especially when it comes to dealing with household names like Sonic. At the same time, it's also nice to revisit some more known commodities after coming across some of the junk that I get stuck playing. I toyed with the idea of doing a series retrospective or playing the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis, but then I remembered Sonic Spinball existed. Sure it's still Sonic, but its certainly not a mainline title in the series. Sonic Spinball, relea...

Lets talk about failure. At some point, everyone is going to fail at something. Aint none of us perfect, right?  However, not all failure is created equal. Sometimes people fail because they don't work hard enough, or they don't think things through or they are working with an idea that's doomed from the start. But that isn't always the case. Sometimes failure comes from pushing too hard, being too visionary or trying to make something from nothing. I'm not sure if any entity in video game history failed more in the latter manners than Sega. Yes, there's a reason Sega doesn't make consoles anymore. But its because they pushed the boundaries too far, not because they didn't do enough. The Saturn and Dreamcast were absolute beasts of consoles, but they were expensive and allegedly difficult to develop for. Remember Sega Channel? That was the PlayStation Store before the PlayStation Store was a thought in Sony's mind. Sega was pumping digital only gamin...

Sorry for no post last week, but I was a little busy... I rag on modern gaming a lot, but it definitely has its positive aspects.  One of the biggest is instant access to low cost or free games via subscription services like PlayStation Plus or Games with Gold.  It’s almost to the point where I have too many games in my collection.  Not all the free games are great, but some certainly stand out.  Especially when those games are updated versions of classics like Sonic Mania. I don’t think Sonic the Hedgehog needs any introduction.  He’s Sega’s mascot and anyone who was a kid in the 90s has at least some familiarity with the blue blur.  His games from that era were classics and even his early 3D offerings were great playthroughs.  But that was 30 years ago and unlike his turtle stomping rival, Sonic has had quite a few missteps.  It’s not that every Mario game has been classic, but even at his worst, I don’t know if he ever ...