The Hotdog Laserhouse

The Big Q&A #1

So while things have gotten crazy around here I kind of neglected to answer any Tumblr questions! Usually I answer them as they come in but this time they’ve stacked up quite a bit, so let’s just answer them all at once.

gottaspeedkeed asked you:
My friend loves to joke that Sonic R is good for all the wrong reason. I actually think that’s true. What do you think about that? What do you think of Sonic R in general?

Sonic R is a totally fine game. It’s seriously lacking in a few departments, but once you “get the hang of it”, it is fun enough. The most important thing to remember is to play it like a driving game and not a platformer, even though by all intents and purposes it can be played like a platformer. But they give you a separate accelerator button so you don’t have to constantly hold “up”, and the game becomes a lot easier to steer once you start using the button instead of the direction. Besides that, use the L/R buttons to make sharper turns. It also helps to not pick Sonic - Sonic’s speed means he is more difficult to control; Knuckles ends up a much better “all-around” character. Keep those in mind and Sonic R is moderately enjoyable for the 15 minutes it takes to clear the game’s five tracks, which is the real problem.

mandrakeroot asked you:
Have you played 3DS Generations? If so, how is it?

I have not played Sonic Generations for 3DS; but I know enough people that have to say that it’s not very good. Level design looks barely coherent, and pretty early on Classic Sonic learns how to Homing Attack and from then on he might as well be a reskinned version of Modern Sonic for how much they make you use it to clear stages. It just sounds like a lazy cash-in, and way worse about it than Sonic Colors DS was.

gottaspeedkeed asked you:
Which of the 2D (or, if you want, you can also throw in 3D) Sonic games have your least favorite level design?

Sonic 3D Blast or Knuckles’ Chaotix, probably. S3DB should be obvious - sprawling pseudo-3D environments where your goal to clear the stage is to find five thingers in order to open the portal to find five more thingers. Hunting for emerald shards as Knuckles in Sonic Adventure was bad enough; this is the same concept, but not only are there more things to find, but you get no radar and no hints. It puts me to sleep.

Chaotix suffers from a complete lack of level design. Very little appreciable sets levels apart from one another; they are just giant boring mazes that you uncontrollably slingshot through basically unopposed. Which is a shame, because aesthetically, I love the “look” of Chaotix. I keep wishing some ROM hacker would go back and “fix” that game somehow.

Anonymous asked you:
Are you ever going to do a Sonic Colors Review?

Should I? I reviewed the DS version. Since writing that review, I have come to enjoy the game a little bit less - it doesn’t have quite the replay longevity I got (and still get) from Sonic Rush and Rush Adventure. I could write words about the Wii version if you really want, but it probably wouldn’t go up on TSSZ (it’d be published here, and probably on my account on GiantBomb under user reviews). If you’re looking for a video review, that’s not a possibility right now - I’ve done too many Sonic and Sega games; I need to do other video reviews for the future. Despite how much I like Sonic games and how much I talk about them, I don’t want my life to turn in to the Sonic the Hedgehog Show.

Anonymous asked you:
Why not try to earn the rest of the $500? You could push your lawn mower around the neighborhood and see how much you make. Imagine how touched your mom would be.

I’m not sure if this is serious or if this is a troll. Not that the sentiment of trying to make money for my Mom is a rude one, of course; just that I know people who would say things like this in some kind of weird effort to make me feel bad about myself. I’m doing the best I can - I was talking with my cousin and he tried to get me a job at this IBM Call Center he works at. Would’ve been really good money, but I was unfortunately under-qualified for it. A shame, too, he told me that with all of my tech experience I was a shoe-in. From the way the recruitment officer sounded on the phone, I just barely missed qualifying for it. But it’s also a pretty sought-after job for how apparently easy it is vs. how much it pays.

Anonymous asked you:
Where did your username originate from?

When I was but a wee child of 14 years old, I entered my first chat room - RubyEchidna (now known as Dawn Best) had a beseen text chat where her and her friends all hung out (J. Axer, Artie from Team Artail, etc.). Sonic Adventure 1 had just been announced, and she specifically linked to this chat on her site as a place to discuss the game, so I joined it. Immediately I noticed everybody had avatars of “their character” (as teenagers often do), so I tried to come up with somebody that represented me. The first name I came up with was “Blaze the Hedgehog”, but I thought that was too obvious so I sat there for a few minutes trying to come up with something better. With nothing better in mind, I settled on “Blaze”. The name stuck, and in the interest of staying “easy to find” over the years by old friends, I have kept the name, even though some would argue I have long since outgrown it.

And that’s all the questions for now! Send in more, I guess. We’ll see how this “big answer post” goes. It equals less long-form rants, but maybe that’s a good thing? I dunno. You tell me!