Played Out - Timeshift (sic Sonic the Hedgehog)

Video games being my medium of choice, I believe in experiencing the entire spectrum - good, bad, and mediocre. If I'm perusing a store and see a game for $5 that I remember hearing something remotely interesting about, I'll probably buy it, even if that point of interest was its absolute terribleness. Such is the reason I own a copy of Superman 64. The bad is equally a part of history, and it makes the good that much better. Plus, it's not like I'm going to spend the x number of hours necessary to play the bad games to completion, even if this was my recent intent upon purchasing Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). I wanted to be able to tell people that I'd played the game in which Sonic ends up making out with a human girl, voiced by Lacey Chabert. Disappointingly, the game is fundamentally broken in almost every way and not worth that already inherently worthless story progression. Did I waste my money, though? I think not! I'll always have this great story to tell, as well as an instruction booklet with totally hot pics of CGI Lacey, which is a joke I'm posthumously retracting in the interest of what I've written below. I was going to insert a video here of Sonic and "Princess Elise" kissing, but I ran away from YouTube after discovering that almost every result of my search was a fan-made music video commemorating their love. To each their own, but this is an embarrassment for all mankind. And hedgehogkind, and also I guess whatever the offspring of this unholy pairing would be.

As usual, most of this text strays far from the original intent of my post, as I have sitting next to me a list of talking points I meant to breach regarding both the promises and pitfalls of mediocrity vis-à-vis the 2007 first-person shooter TimeShift. I was even going to have myself a great time bashing Avatar in my discussion of environment versus life and motivation. Nevertheless, if my summer reading of Mark Twain's autobiography has taught me anything, it is to talk about what your mind wanders to at that moment, and my mind right now is on the sick section of the gaming public that has allowed a once-great video game icon to descend into one of the worst examples of modern storytelling in any format. It's been decried elsewhere, ad hominem, but now it's my turn.

I know I said "To each his own" before, but I was lying. There are valid alternatives in lifestyle, founded upon reason and logic, and then there is blind idiocy. It's probably our education systems's fault or something, but Sonic and his Shi*tty friends (as Tails and company have come to be called) are a plight upon pop culture. I'm not even going to start on some of the deviancy his anthropomorphic evolution has inspired on the internet. Peruse at your own risk. Rather, let us here simply study the legacy of his love for Elise.

First, an example of an actual interaction between the two during a cutscene:

Please note, in case you missed me mentioning it or missed the visual section of the video, that Elise is a human, whereas Sonic is a blue hedgehog with big shoes and no other clothes. His head is also five times bigger than hers. True love has overcome greater odds, to be sure, but without a drop of irony? Impossible.

Or so you'd think. I am going to spend the remainder of this post listing songs that have been set to a montage of Sonic and Elise's scenes from the game - scenes which involve the same intensity of relationship witnessed above.

Song: "I Still Believe" -- Hayden Panetierre.
Top-rated comment on the video: "This is a very beautiful, very true song. It certainly does express Elise's emotions for Sonic in a very romantic yet beautiful way."

Song: "Can I Have This Dance?" -- High School Musical 3
Comment by SONICandELISE4everAJ: "Your girlfriend appreciates all of the beautiful and wonderful videos you make for her ;) thank you my sonic :)"

Song: "Sweet Dream (Japanese)"
Top comment: "Sonic doesn't like Elise or Amy. He hasn't girlfriend because he lives for his own rules. So the title is inadequade."
Ed. note: Amy Rose is a pink hedgehog infatuated with Sonic and soft-serve ice cream. There is a huge divide between SonElise and SonAmy fans, I'm learning.

Song: "Miracle" -- Cascada
Comment by Midnightsbeautiful: "I LOOOOOOOVEEE SonElise so MUCH!! It's the best couple!"

Song: "One in a Million" -- Hannah Montana
No more comments. It's too sad. These are not kids having their fun. These are developed minds devoting effort to a couple that exists in a single Sonic game that, once again, is damn near broken and unplayable.

There is a serious thesis to be made here regarding societal arrested development facilitated through media, and I think I just wrote it.

This entry was posted by DoktorPeace, on Wednesday, June 15, 2011. You can leave your response.