To
whoever is reading this: listen carefully and let my grim tale be of warning to
you. Know these are my last words, my final message to humanity, for soon, very
soon the horrors which I experienced will take their toll and whatever is left
of my sanity will finally abandon me.
But
first, a premise: I’ve never been a fan of a particular video game series and I
never cared about any particular franchise, I just used to rent whatever looked
a fun game at a blockbuster near my
house, for this reason I had very little knowledge of most gaming “icons”.
Also,
contrary from what some haters I had the displeasure of meeting said, I am NOT
a furry and/or in a closet. Thank you very much.
Now
that these important premises have been stated it is time to start my story.
One
day I rented a sonic game for the Playstation 2. I had no prior knowledge of
the Sonic franchise as I had never owned a Sega console.
I’m not sure about what its name was but I
think it might have been called Sonic Heroes. Also the fact that in the back of
the cover there was a white bat with a remarkable cleavage did not influence my
decision of renting the game because I’m not a furry.
Nothing
unpleasant happened while playing and I recall that I had a good time with it;
it was nothing special but I had fun nonetheless.
But
now that it’s too late for me I finally understand what that game was: a bait!
A way to trick you into entering the horrifying world of Sonic!
Disaster
struck few years later.
I
think Blockbuster went bankrupt or something so I had to buy my games at a
nearby gamestop. Luckily I was from a rich family so I could actually afford
their prices.
I
don’t remember what I had the intention of buying that day, because as soon as
I saw the cover of ''that game ''I decided
to buy it. I remembered having fun with
a game from the same franchise and this one looked…special. The cover simply read
“Sonic the Hedgehog”. I saw the pictures
and the description on the back of the cover and it looked like an amazing
game. I also thought that since the franchise was so loved and famous all of
its games must have been at least good if not exceptional. Thinking back there must have been something
else that made me desire that game so much, maybe it was a subliminal message
designed to enthrall simpler minds. No, that can’t be it! I was and still am a
smart gamer! A subliminal message couldn’t have affected me! It must have been
something more… sinister. Something dark. An evil force that resided within the
game and is probably still there, Lurking, hiding, waiting for its next
unwitting prey.
As
soon as I arrived home I placed the game into the console and I started
playing. The initial cutscene had impressive graphics judging from the ten of
it I watched before I decided to skip it.
Because, seriously, only nerds watch
cutscenes.
After
an interminably long loading screen I was in the game. I was playing as Sonic,
and following me was Tails (I know the names because I did a lot of research on
Deaviantart.com. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I saw Rouge the Bat do; the
sight of which, by the way left me
completely unaffected). I was in the town I saw in those ten seconds of
cutscene. I could feel there was something
a bit …off but at that time I couldn’t figure out what it was. I couldn’t freely explore the town because
some guys with a ridiculous looking uniform blocked the way.
I
headed in the only direction I could: forward.
After a while I saw an old man with a blue exclamation mark on his head
and I thought it would have been a good idea to speak with him. I walked to him
and pressed the “A” button.
Loading
screen.
He
told me something I didn’t care about enough to remember.
Another
loading screen.
I
then had to do some sort of mission where I had to run through rings. The mission would have been relatively
easy if the developers didn’t have the idea of having the camera purposefully
rotate 180 degrees at the most inconvenient times. I thought it was an original
idea to add more difficulty to an otherwise easy minigame. And then…
Loading
screen.
The
game then proceeded to rate my proficiency. I was then rated with a C and then
the old man spoke some gibberish again and gave me one hundred rings.
Loading
screen.
I
started to wonder about the utility of those loading screens. Surely you didn’t
need to reload the whole city every single time something happened. No sane
developer would publish a game with these load times I thought. Then why? What
was the reason behind those loading times?
Then
for some reason I had to buy new shoes and entered the first level. To reach
the entrance of the level I had to press square near a long row of rings to
slide through them, which would allow me to “fly” over a tract of sea to a
small rock where the portal was situated. When I was about halfway through the
row of rings I heard a muffled cry that sounded a lot like Tails. The level was
one, massive, beach.
That’s
when it all started. It was so sudden,
there were glitches everywhere. Sonic would just ignore the laws of
physics, sometimes when near a small
rock he would glitch out for a second and start standing upright on the side of
the rock at a 45 degree angle, sometimes he would just start shaking at an
impressive speed while still standing upright and never changing from his
default standing pose. Other times,
while in a section where you have to run very fast he would be hit by
non-existing obstacles which sent him
flying around uncontrollably while flailing his arms and legs wildly, clearly
experiencing an unbelievable amount of
pain. Surely a game this glitched could have never been released by a
respectable company like Sega. This had to be intentional. This had to be the
deliberate creation of a deranged, cruel mind. Or was it the game itself,
torturing the poor hedgehog and intentionally messing with the player? Was the
game haunted by some mysterious force? I later found out that that was the
case.
The
level finally ended. I promptly skipped the cutscene that played after another one of those loading
screens, because, again, not a nerd.
It
was after I returned to the town where you start the game when I finally
understood everything; the reason behind the loading screens and what was off
about the town.
The
loading screens were there to give the player enough time to process all the terror
the player was put through. To let the rising fear turn into sheer horror. It
was a smart move, I must admit it.
And
the town… oh god the town! The town itself wasn’t the problem. It was the
people! When they talked they moved the their mouth and gesticulated like a
normal person would, they were trying to speak, to scream, to warn you to turn
back, to tell you to shut off the game, but the only thing that came out of
their mouth was a dull and lifeless “Hey”. Everyone was like that. Some dark
force, some malicious entity was sucking the life out of them.
I
knew I had to watch the next cutscene to see what was going on but it consisted
of teasing some sexual tension between Sonic and an underaged human girl called
Elise so I skipped it because it made me feel unconfortable.
The
next level wasn’t any better or any worse than the beach level, except there
was no sea. I will not describe it because I would just repeat myself. I’d
rather get to what happened after that level.
I
skipped the next cutscene too because the SonicXElise ship was giving me
conflicting feelings. And then I met him. The dark energy had taken a physical
form. At first it looked like a lazy palette swap of Sonic, it looked just like
him, except with grey fur, green eyes and a marijuana leaf on his forehead, but
I knew Sega was better than that. It took me some time of just staring at him
but then I understood the meaning behind his looks; this was clearly the work
of an evil genius. His form mocked you by reflecting your looks and your
flaws and the color of his fur…grey… was
just the manifestation of all the boredom, the depression and the lack of care
that the game exuded .
I
tried fighting him. He was standing still for most of the time not even trying
to block my hits, but I was too scared to attack. Sometimes he would throw
chairs and tables at me with his psychic powers but through sheer skills I
avoided them all. I Kept running in circles around- him trying to find an
opening, I lunged at him with a homing attack but he blocked it effortlessly.
Before throwing Sonic’s limp body away with his psychokinetic powers he uttered
three words which are still seared in my mind, three words which I keep hearing
in my nightmares : “IT’S. NO. USE”.