The original Sonic the Hedgehog sped onto the small
screen 25 years ago today, June 23, firing what many consider the first major
shot of the 16-bit Wars. Until the blue blur hit the scene, Sega had been only
a small thorn in the mighty Nintendo’s side. Sonic put Sega on the map, and the
Genesis in the hands of millions of gamers.
But as the 16-bit Wars gave way the PlasyStation era, Sonic
started to lose his luster. The last great Sonic game was Sonic and Knuckles,
released in 1994, and the last tolerable Sonic game was made in 2001. Sonic '06
came out 10 years ago, and became what many consider the final nail in the
series' coffin. A shell of his former self due to the increasingly criminal
decisions of his parent company, Sonic has spiraled into irrelevance in the
last decade.
Why does this always happen to child stars? Were he real,
Sonic would likely have joined the ranks of Macaulay Culkin and have his own E!
Hollywood True Story by now.
But let's not concentrate on Sonic in whatever alleyway
he has chosen to become intoxicated in today, let's remember his greatness of
years past.
Ah, but wait – there HAVE been good Sonic games in the
last decade. Danny, a friend of mine, pointed that out to me today.
“I feel like people are a bit
too hard on Sonic,” he wrote. “No doubt there are some serious misfires, but
Sonic Colors was really great and Sonic Generations is easily the best Sonic
since Sonic and Knuckles.” He added that he enjoyed Lost Word, and “only Sonic
Boom since Sonic Colors is worthy of scorn.”
Ok, Ok. So sometimes I say
mean things about Sonic that aren’t entirely deserved. (See implications of alcoholism
and homelessness, above.) But
that’s because no one takes Sonic seriously anymore, even with decent games
like Generations. Sonic needs three or more hits ina row now, triple A titles, to make
some kind of a real comeback. Maybe Sega should give him to Kojima, or just do
something radically different and fun, like Resident Evil 4 did.
I haven't cared about Sonic since Dreamcast and I know I’m
not the only one. It's going to take more than Lost World and some other meh
games here and there to change that.
But are Generations and Colors those games?
For some, yes.
So where do you stand, reader? Did Sonic’s career slow to
a crawl, or is there still some star power in those red shoes of his?
Deadly Premonition isn’t a great game, but it’s certainly a
memorable one.
The bizarre cast, a surreal protagonist, and a Law and Order
meets Scooby-Doo plot earned this game a cult following upon its release on Xbox
360 in 2010. Or maybe it was the fact that it debuted as a budget title and
soccer moms are cheap. I don’t know.
In any event, I’m not sure how anyone played it long enough
to enjoy it. This version of Deadly Premonition controlled like someone rubbed Jell-O
in the player’s eyes and tied their fingers into their shoelaces. A younger
Matt put up with it for about an hour before shelving the bastard.
Apparently other players were frustrated too, because a “director’s
cut” was released in 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Windows. This version changes
the controls to feel more like a video game and less like digital
waterboarding.
I’d always wondered why people loved Deadly Premonition, so
with the promise of manageable controls (and a sale that netted me the game for
five bucks; guess I’m cheap too) I took the plunge.
Investigation Failure
The best way to describe Deadly Premonition is this: Silent
Hill and Grand Theft Auto got drunk and had a threesome with the TV show Twin
Peaks, while Sega Bass Fishing filmed it and Atari’s Hard Drivin’ uploaded it
to a seedy website via Netscape Navigator. That is to say, it tries to be a lot
of things, and isn’t very good at any of them.
The driving is awkward and the engine sounds like a cheap
blender struggling to make an ice cream and lug nut smoothie. The one-note
combat isn’t interesting until the player starts encountering bosses in the
last quarter of the game, and even then, it’s still clunky and predictable. Odd
music cues and bargain bin zombies make this game about as scary as the TV edit
of Friday the 13th with the lights on, and the fishing scenes are
much better at simulating bouts of depression than reeling in a whopper.
The fishing mini game made me question my life choices.
And despite what anyone tells you, the map still sucks.
Apparently, Deadly Premonition’s roots are as a PlayStation
2 game originally titled “Rainy Woods,” started way back in 2004. It’s pretty
obvious, too, with trees that look like poorly disguised cellphone towers, Papier-mâché bushes, and a slew of murky
colors. (See image below.)
Fun Fact: Either an homage or an oversight, the real estate office in the game still bears the "Rainy Woods" moniker.
“Now THAT is a good biscuit!”
Despite its many, many flaws, the more you play Deadly
Premonition: Director’s Cut, the more it grows on you. What starts as a ho-hum romp through a backwater town to solve a boring murder case evolves into a life
or death struggle for the wellbeing of mankind.
Getting to know the main character, York, and his “imaginary
friend,” Zach, is one of the game’s most rewarding elements. Long car rides across
town are punctuated with York talking about b-movies, punk music, and his inability
to understand women to the ever-silent Zach.
Likewise, characters that initially got on your nerves become
endearing somewhere along the line. You don’t even realize it until their face
is impaled on a giant hook, leaving their cross-dressed body swinging from the clock
tower, which is how I imagine Jason Voorhees decorates for the holidays.
Things really pick up in the game’s often touching, often
stupid, always explosive finale. Plot twist after plot twist reveal who killer
is, then who the REAL killer is, then the REAL REAL killer is. It culminates
with an annoyingly quicktimey final boss. The last few cutscenes suggest a
bittersweet conclusion, but the more you think about it, the more you start to
question what it all really means.
Therein lies the crux of Deadly Premonition, the secret to
its cult following. On my way to work today, I found myself reevaluating those
last few hours of gameplay. I’d like to think that it ended well for York and
Zach. And there’s plenty of evidence that it did. But there’s also subtle hints
that they’re much worse off than even the guy you left swinging from the clock
tower.
It’s been a few days since I finished – I got the platinum trophy
for kicks – but Deadly Premonition is still on my mind. Somehow, I willingly
spent 50 hours with the title’s poor gameplay. For some reason, I just kept
coming back until I solved the case.
Charming the player into enjoying a bad game… I think that’s
Deadly Premonition’s best plot twist of all. It’s that right, Zach?
It really is, Old Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4. It really is.
Apparently my late Uncle Richard owned a motorcycle, but
I don’t recall actually ever seeing it. It’s just as well: I’ve always viewed
motorbikes less as badass beasts of streets, and more as potential harbingers
of injury to my frail skull, my tiny, crunchy bones, and my squishy genitals. And
you can’t even put a baseball card in the spokes.
That’s one of the reasons I was never interested in Super
Hang-On, one of the earliest offerings of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive library. The
cover, featuring a biker leaning off his sweet, high-powered hog to make a
hairpin turn, was plastered all over Sega promo materials. Even for a guy who
had never played the game, the iconic image screamed “Sega!” before the actual Sega
Scream ads were even a glimmer in Sonic’s over-caffeinated eyes.
Nearly a decade after its 1989 release, I finally got my
hands on Super Hang-On as part of the “6-Pak,” a Genesis cartridge crammed to
the brim with SHO and five of Sega’s other early hits. Super Hang-On had
motorcycles and passwords and I had a new copy of Tekken and not a whole lot of
patience, so I wound up playing Streets of Rage for an hour before going back
to the rugged, dangerously sharp polygons of the 32-bit era.
Earlier this month, I picked up the Sega Vintage
Collection on PlayStation 3 for a fiver. For the second time in my life, I had
gotten a copy of Super Hang-On as part of a package deal. And, for the second
time, it was the gaming equivalent of licorice jellybeans, sinking to the
bottom of the metaphorical bag as I stabbed my way through Revenge of Shinobi
and punched many a hapless octopi to death in that Master System classic, Alex
Kidd in Miracle World.
But when I loaded up Super Hang-On, this time the arcade
version from 1987, and went poking around in the options menu, I found
something mind-blowing.
You could play in 3D. Delicious, old-school, red ‘n’ blue,
three-freaking-dee. Images of Rad Racer on NES flooded my mind. That game was
in 3D too. And it was the most child-abusing, soul-rending “3D” I’ve ever seen,
staining many a youthful afternoon in salty, salty tears.
Still, I figured I’d
give it a try, and dug out the only pair of 3D glasses I owned. At least if Super
Hang-On looked less like a game and more like someone spilled a bucket of red
and blue paint on a burn victim, I’d be appropriately viewing it though Nightmare
on Elm Street glasses.
I want you to go grab your 3D glasses. C’mon, I know you
have a pair of them. Go dig ‘em out and put ‘em on. Seriously, I’ll wait.
You ready?
Take a look at this.
Click on it for full screen!
This photo is nice, but doesn’t do the game justice. SHO’s
3D mode is awesome! The road has some serious depth, the background objects pop
and bob with the action, and playing for more than 10 minutes gives me a
headache like I was just punched in the jaw by the Mighty Thor. It’s just as 3D
was meant to be!
At its core, Super Hang-On is just Outrun on two wheels.
But SHO has something Outrun doesn’t: a turbo button! Well, unless you’re
playing Turbo Outrun, which also has a turbo button, as the name would imply. But
SHO has a turbo button IN 3D.
Super Hang-On immediately reminded me why I used to play
racing games, before Gran Tourismo made everything SUPER REALISTIC down the thread
count of the driver’s underpants; before “drifting” – applying the breaks to
make the car slide around corners – took the fun out of all 200-plus horses.
SHO adheres to a simple concept that’s been lost in modern gaming: just go fast.
I shredded the streets of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the
good ol’ US of A to the sound of 10,000 rockin’ angels with Casio keyboards.
Just listen to this! It’s like a Sega Genesis is making sweet, electric love to
your earholes.
I made a CD with this song looping for like 10 minutes
and it’s in my car’s radio AS I TYPE THIS. I’m not even a little embarrassed.
Super Hang-On is a blast, but like most old school racing
games, it wasn’t long before I’d seen everything it had to offer. I nabbed the
game’s dozen trophies in under 45 minutes and could do half the courses with my
eyes closed. But as I went to shut off the game, I noticed a “trials” option
tucked away in the main menu. It’s really more of a time attack mode, with
players completing one of the four courses as fast as they could.
But there was a fifth course available, one you can’t
even play in the main game: “World.” It was all 48 stages stitched together
into one long race.
I can’t even remember the number of times I’ve wanted to
drive to Europe, but that pesky Atlantic Ocean always gets in my way. Let me
tell you, that ocean is cold in more ways than one.
“OK,” I thought, “I’ll play until I run out of time.”
But then something happened that was straight out of my
younger self’s idea of a dramatic sports movie, potentially starring Pee Wee
Herman and Don Knots, as they were the only two actors I knew by name in 1987: I
wasn’t losing. I was blasting through epic bends, shooting past rivals, weaving
between rows of 300 identical signs of Marilyn Monroe. Fourteen minutes and 23
stages in, I wasn’t fooling around anymore.
Those last few stages had me scared. Before hitting up
the World course, I had made several unsuccessful bids at the 18-stage Europe level.
Could I handle it?
By stage 47, my mantra had changed from “go fast” to “just
don’t hit anything.” The last few stages had given me barely enough time to
complete them. And going into the final stage, I didn’t have much room for
error.
A familiar feeling washed over me, from an era without
save states or second chances. In about 40 seconds, I was either going to
finish Super Hang-On’s toughest trial by the skin of my teeth or watch
helplessly, agonizingly, as the clock wound down to zero with the finish line in
eyeshot.
I only had one choice: I had to go fast AND not hit
anything. For a few seconds, I was back in tune with my twitch reflexes from
two dozen years ago.
Finally I saw the finish line with ten seconds left, an
eternity in Super Hang-On. But thankfully, I only need four of them. The
journey of 32-plus minutes came to an end with my victory and six seconds to
spare.
That was a week ago and I haven’t played Super Hang-On
since. For a guy like me, most of my great video game memories have a flipside –
the day the fun died. An unbeatable level, a bugged trophy that just wouldn’t
pop, the final 20 percent of a game slogged through out of duty, not desire. I
had unknowingly crafted the perfect swan song for Super Hang-On and I’m not
willing to mess that up. So to quote the song “Mr. Blue” by Electric Light
Orchestra, “Never mind. I’ll remember you/I’ll remember you this way.”
Although Hillary Clinton might want Bernie Sanders to wake up and smell the ashes of his campaign for U.S. president, I don't think he's ready to give up yet.
But remember, the right man in the wrong place might make all the difference in the world for Trump.
