Games To Try Before You Die: Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)

The 'Blue Dude With 'Tude' was in his prime back in the 90's! It was a constant battle on who was the better mascot. Mario or Sonic? Here in America, we loved Sonic! He was fast, cool, and had attitude (everything in the 90's was about attitude...don't ask me, it's just how it was). Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was a typical pack-in game that came with your Genesis, and for many, was the first Genesis game you played.

What: You play as Sonic the Hedgehog, running through levels with your side kick Tails to defeat the evil Dr. Robotnik! He has taken all the animals of the land and changed them into robots to take over the world! You need to stop him!

Why: This was the first Genesis game I owned on the platform, so I played the heck out of it. Unlike the first Sonic game, you could have 2 players in this one, but the first player controlled the progress of the game. Tails was just kinda there to collect rings and maybe kill a robot or two. If you wanted control, you had to battle your friend or brother to be first player, but at the time, it was unique to have this kind of co-op experience.

It was a very FAST game. The first game was slower compared to this one. Sonic 2 put the whole "Blast Processing" thing to the test. You could run so fast, that the screen sometimes had to catch up with you! INTENSE! Mario couldn't do that! Hence, why us American's loved it, cause we love fast stuff.We loved it so much that Sega Genesis beat the Super Nintendo in sales during the Nintendo/Sega battle!

Sonic 2 is that "must have" game for your Genesis. Chances are that if you own a Genesis, you own Sonic 2. Everyone had it!

Sonic today has become really stale unfortunately, he did not age well like Mario did. Sure, he was the bomb back in the 90's, but in a 3D world, speed is not necessarily a good thing...the lastest game "Sonic Generations" was great! Why? It went back to the basics of Sonic...2D platforming...it's what Sonic was created for.