Summary
KICK ASS!
The Good
The classic of classics, Sonic the Hedgehog was, and still is, for Sega what Mario was for Nintendo in the late '80s, early '90s. He's cool, he looks awesome, he's got the spines and he's BLEEDING FAST!
Sonic the Hedgehog is one of those classic killer apps that made people buy the hardware. Like Mario or even VisiCalc, people rushed to the stores to get the machines that could run this amazing game. Ask just about anyone in just about any modern country about Sonic, and they'd at the very least know what you're talking about - it was that big.
And with good reason to boot! Sonic looks absolutely
gorgeous, despite obvious technical inferiourity to its chief rival, the SNES. The game is bright, colourful (though never too much), and most importantly: it runs faster than you can shake a stick at! I was absolutely stunned at the frame rates the machine would spit out at the television, and that was only the beginning; the awesome SEGA logo, the terrific music and the blaringly fast, easily controlled action made for hours and hours of furious, enjoyable gameplay. Though I never had a Genesis, it definitely made me want to buy one (though I couldn't afford it at the time...), and to this day I still occasionally play the slightly inferiour Game Gear version of the game, wishing I had a Genesis when I was a kid...
The Bad
What? Who? Where? I think not.
The Bottom Line
One of the greatest platformers in history, an amazing game that pretty much made Sega what they are (were?) today.
