PAS2: Sonic the Hedgehog

I was just six years old when I was introduced to mobile gaming. It was Christmas morning and I was opening presents when my dad sat down next to me on the couch. He handed me a small wrapped box, telling me to open it. I did, and my eyes lit up at the sight of my first mobile device: an iPod Touch.

Unlike today, it was not common in 2010 for kids my age to have an expensive smartphone, so the thought of having any kind of personal device was thrilling. We opened the box, turned the iPod on, and I was introduced to my first mobile game: Sonic the Hedgehog. Looking back now, I find it pretty ironic that the first game my parents chose to give me on a fairly new device was one that had originally been released 19 years prior. Regardless, I loved playing as the speedy little retro character everywhere I went.

My love for Sonic didn’t stop on the iPod, though. Just a year later, a game called Sonic Generations was released on the PlayStation 3 and, sure enough, I loved it even more than the original. As the first game I ever played and completed on my own, I can still vividly remember specific moments from throughout the game. It was the first time I can remember ever becoming truly frustrated, almost angry, with the difficulty of a game. It occurs to me now just how large a part that game likely played in my enjoyment of video games. It introduced me not just to the challenge of gaming on my own, but also to the satisfaction of overcoming that challenge.

By the time my parents had divorced and we had moved to Mechanicsburg, there was a new factor in my gaming life: my sister. Born five years after me, my sister had not been exposed to video games by our dad the same way I had been. Consequently, she was not very good at them. As I mentioned in my first post, I did not inherit my father’s patience when it comes to video games. As such, I did not enjoy the inevitability of having to share playing time with my little (baby, at the time) sister. Luckily for me, I was a smart kid; and although I knew my beloved Sonic game was not multiplayer, my sister did not. And so, when the time came that my sister asked to play and my mom insisted I comply, I gave her a controller and said that she could “control the arms.” Sonic does not use his arms (other than for running, of course). It may seem cruel to deceive a toddler, but we were both happy. She could “play” with her brother and I could enjoy one of my favorite games without wanting to rip my hair out.

As one of the earliest games I ever played (and likely a large contributor to my later love of running), the Sonic franchise will always hold a very special place in my heart and my PS3’s hard drive.