Twenty years ago today, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis. In honor of this anniversary, I dug through the lesser-known corners of blue hedgehog history and pulled together an amusing collection of Sonic Oddities for you to enjoy. You’ll find the result — which includes Sonic’s brushes with genetics, Michael Jackson, and even ketchup — compiled in a slideshow over at Technologizer. I hope you enjoy it.

Speaking of Sonic the Hedgehog, what did you think of the 1991 Sega Genesis game when you first played it?

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Previous entries in Benj’s “Oddities” series:
Super Mario Oddities
Legend of Zelda Oddities
Nintendo Entertainment System Oddities
Game Boy Oddities
Windows Oddities

Retail price? $7.99. For you? Fifty cents.

In the early-mid 1990s, I regularly made trips to Toys ‘R’ Us to pick through their video game clearance section. It was then that I built up the foundations of my fast-growing vintage game collection.

I had a blast when they started clearing out their NES items — for example, I picked up Kirby’s Adventure for $10 and a whole bunch of unopened NES accessories like controllers and cleaning kits from that time for a mere pittance (I still have about four new-in-box NES Advantages from that time that I bought for $2 a piece). This is the same place where I bought the Virtual Boy and Sega 32X new in their boxes for about $30 a piece. Man, those were the days.

One day while browsing the store’s video game strategy guide rack, I noticed this forlorn and chronically passed-over hint book for Ultima: Exodus, a poorly received port of the PC classic Ultima III for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The copyright date in the back said 1989, and by the look of the discount stickers on the front, it appeared the booklet had been sitting on the shelf since that time. After five years of neglect, its cover had become scuffed, dirty, and mysteriously ink-stained on one corner.

The book’s binding was off-kilter when I bought it for the low low price of 50-cents, which may be why consumers passed it up in favor of non-defective printings of the same book. On the other hand, they may have simply passed it up because the associated game wasn’t too popular.

Discussion Topic of the Week: When’s the last time you bought a physical paper hint book for a video game?

Up now on Technologizer.com is my recent interview with John Linnell of the tech-savvy rock band They Might Be Giants. Linnell and I discussed his personal computer and video game history, how he’s integrated computers into his music career, a fierce Tetris addiction, and gruesome encounters with X-Acto knives. I hope you enjoy it.

By they way — Happy Birthday to Mr. Linnell, who turned 52 yesterday.

GET INTO THE GAME. YEEEEAAAAHHH

By golly. Has it really been 11 years since the PlayStation 2 came out? Sony launched the massively successful console in Japan on March 4th, 2000, making the platform one of the longest-lived in history. Games are still being made for it (one of its most recent releases, WWE All Stars, landed in March of this year), and the console hardware is still in production.

During this week of E3, which will include a new console announcement, it’s interesting to look back a decade to the launch of this massively successful machine. The early ad for the PS2 you see above was published not by Sony, but by Target to promote its availability in its stores. It just goes to show how closely hardware vendors and retailers must work together to make every new video game console launch a success.

Discussion Topic of the Week: When did you first get a PlayStation 2? What was the first game you bought for it?

CYBERSPACE (echo, echo, echo…):

The future of mankind or an ingenious scheme to sell virtual furniture for real money?

It’s been a while since I’ve done a slideshow where I attempted to quantify the unquantifiable and rank a series of things in order from least to greatest. I’m typically not a fan of the format because the results are always subjective, but I still think it works because it stimulates public thought and gives me a good excuse to both entertain and educate on a subject I love.

The subject, in this case, is online worlds, where people gather together in virtual space to buy/sell mouse-crafted Furry outfits, chat about LARPing, and construct entire worlds filled with simulated genitalia.

So without further ado, I present to you “The 11 Most Influential Virtual Worlds of All Time” over at PC World. I hope you enjoy it.

When you’re done reading/pounding your fists, feel free to tell us about your favorite online worlds in the comments below.

California Games at the Kitchen Table (October 2010)

Oh Tammy Sue, How I Adore You

How do you make a handheld controller into a non-handheld controller? By strapping on a giant block of unwieldy plastic, of course.

The Stick Station (subject of a RSOTW in 2006) achieved the same feat by using a large poplar board. The result was far more stylish than the Video Rack, but equally useless.

While there may be a handful of games that benefit from an immovable joystick base (like an arcade machine), they’re in such a minority that they don’t warrant a special peripheral. I back up this observation by the fact that the Video Rack and Stick Station are exceedingly rare peripherals. If everybody had wanted one, they’d be common today.

There is one one notable case, however, where a joystick stabilizer really helps. Atari shipped a special dual-joystick mount with every copy of Robotron 2084 for the Atari 8-bit computer line. I have one, and it is awesome.

Discussion Topic of the Week: In your opinion, what video games would benefit from using the Video Rack?

Up now on PCMag is a slideshow I made showcasing 10 unreleased video game consoles. I hope you enjoy it.

Do you know of any cool unreleased game systems that I didn’t mention? Tell us about them in the comments below.

“Lets You Use Your Game Boy In The Dark.” (see back)

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did you use any accessories with your Game Boy back in the day? Which ones?

A scene from Benj’s recent birthday party (April 2011)