| Sonic The Hedgehog 2: Sonic & Tails |
Upon the heels of their success with Sonic The Hedgehog, Sega released a sequel in 1992, Sonic The Hedgehog 2: Sonic & Tails. The game added a new, secondary, NPC that followed you around and mimiced your moves named Tails Prower - a flying fox that would follow you around, take out enemies, and pop up again and again at random, at least that was my experience.
In Sonic 2, Dr. Roobotnik is up to no good once again, entrapping all the forest animals in pods, and in this case, "Destroying the environment. See, 1992 was all about saving the earth. What, you thought that "Climate Change" was NEW? Go search about it in the 70's, 80's, and 90's, it was always there. It's just in the 1990's, it was not just hippie earth-momma's talking about it finally. So I see where the plot came from. Also the same year, we had the EcoQuest games from Sierra, we had a whole bunch of PSAs on recycling, in some regions - like the southeastern United States - we'd never even heard of it before. We had cartoons like Captain Planet and the Planeteers, or the movie Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. See, it was not just the Seattlite grungers in ex-Logger clothes complaining about the environment and evil corporations and the things they do to our planet! Even Video Games were preaching about the earth. Unfortunatley, I don't think anyone really thought that these suit and tie nitwits up top would actually PRETEND to be eco-friendly (ie lying) while talking aabout how their company recycles everything they don't use to make their products (while changing the toxic waste shipping to midnight) - but I digress, let's get back on track. Sonic 2 was one of the most popular games in the series and it really seems it helped launch Sega's' profile a little bit at the time. Unfortunatley though, Sega would not continue to stay on top for very long, as the Super Nintendo would come, then the Playstation would come and eat everyone alive, before Microsoft decided they needed to dip their hands in the video game pot (Xbox).How To Kill Time at a Mall in the 90's - My Experiences So if you read my Video Arcade Games Mega-Page, you know I'm none too fond about spending my day at a mall roaming clothing stores. Too many hours of being bored out of my witts waiting for various female family members to get the hell out of the changing rooms and finally buy the fashionista crap they bought. But what about if you CAN'T Afford the video arcade? What then? What if you were a moron and left your tokens in the Sega Turbo or Pole Position II machine last time....then what? Well, there's a place you can go that had video games free to the (presumably buying) public and they would not charge a thing - Kay-Bee-Toys! At Kay-Bee, they had the Sega Genesis pointed out toward the walkways of the Village Mall, and I could wander in and play Sonic 2 any time I liked. Sometimes I'd start over a new game, sometimes I'd get to pick up where some other kid left off. Sometimes I'd have 2 player matches with a stranger or someone I knew who was around, and sometimes I was on my lonesome, sometimes for hours. And nobody batted an eye back then. I'd just stand there playing Sonic. And it was easy because I could be easily found, just walk to Kay-Bee and there IW as playing Sonic 2. No hunting around, no intercom, no security, I'm there. Always will be, until it's time to get out of clothing-department-store-hell. |
