Journal Entry #2

Videogames and me (1)

Since I was a child, I’ had a very close connection to videogames. I grew up playing with my elder brother’s SEGA Mega Drive. In this entry I am going to go through some of the games I played at that time. Hopefully, you have also played some of these, or maybe my experiences inspire you to try them!
The first videogames I recall playing were the classics of Sonic The Hedgehog. That made me build a relationship with the character that would last until today. One of my the memories that stayed with me from that time is when I was playing Sonic The Hedgehog 2. I enjoyed playing it a lot, but I wasn’t very skilled, and couldn’t clear even the second stage, Chemical Zone Act 2. This level introduces the mechanic of water, and I remember how I was unable to jump over the platforms, fell into the water, and eventually always drowned to death. One day, when my brother was around, with tears in my eyes I asked him to clear that section for me. Then, he answered me “Even if I were to clear it for your, how will you even be able to make it through later stages, which are more difficult than this?” I don’t remember how I reacted to this, probably I just kept crying and got mad at him, but looking in retrospective, this is something that would define my relationship with videogames during the following years.

I would like to use this entry to reflect on those videogames I played in my brother’s console and record the memories. Other game I remember playing is Rocket Knight Adventures. The game features an opossum as its main character (I just had to look what animal it was, I didn’t know it) and I remember it was a very arcade game with stages in which you would have to defeat armored pigs. The music was catchy, and I really liked the graphics. I remember having trouble understanding the gameplay mechanics, and it was also a quite difficult game. I never went further than stage 3. There was a sequel, Sparkster, which I also played, and honestly I liked it much more than the first one (especially the character design). But my brother always would say that the first one was better. As with Rocket Knight Adventures, Sparkster was also quite difficult, and I never managed to clear it. But I remember fondly that when you started the game, there was a skippable section in which you could fight riding a mecha. That was really cool. I only cleared both games many years later, when I was in high school and made use of save-states. I also remember that a remake came out for Rocket Knight Adventures. I played the demo in my PS3, but the graphics looked really ugly to me, and I wasn’t really interested.

Next game on the list is Cool Spot! Honestly, I think it is a miracle that I still remember this game. First I should try to explain it just accessing my scarce memories about this game let's see... So as the title of the game states, the protagonist of this game is... surprise, a cool spot! The spot is red. And cool means it is wearing sunglasses. Of course, cool=sunglasses, right? Now, I did remember that in the game there was some reference to a famous drink, which at the beginning I thought it was pepsi. But no, it was 7up (I just learnt about that in wikipedia). Also funny that the composer of this game is Tommy Tallarico. I only learnt about this man because of Hbomberguy's essay on the oof sound, which I encourage you to watch. In fact, as I write these words I am listening to the OST of this game again and traveling back twenty years in time.