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Growing Up With Sonic the Hedgehog
Harel Cohen, a fellow contributor and one of my best friends, notified me that Sonic turned 35 in June. That meant Sega Corporation would probably deliver on music, an animated short, or another spectacular surprise.
“I’m turning 35 in July,” I replied. A brief silence followed. Then we moved on to talking about what Sega was planning for Sonic’s birthday. (The animations that have emerged look amazing.) Still, the weight of that realization followed. A teenage hedgehog had celebrated his 35th birthday. Sure, Sonic isn’t real, and writers have not given him angst about aging. Others our age have accomplished a fair amount, and Sonic is no different.
For the record, I suck at playing classic Sonic; Harel kindly gifted the games to me, and I tried playing them on a stream. I could feel everyone wincing from their side of the computer screen as I kept dying over and over again. Mastering the speed and not drowning or falling on spikes requires practice. I just need to make time to practice, ideally when the world isn’t on fire. Later-game graphics would prove more complicated, especially when bringing Sonic into the 3D realm. The thought of fighting one of Eggman’s robots with 360 degrees of freedom and with possible fall damage is daunting. Still, Harel has gotten me into the franchise, and I can see parallels as a fellow Gen Y member. bettingx.club
Forever Fifteen
Sonic the Hedgehog is canonically a teenager, but in real life, he is 35 and has accomplished much in that time. He’s been speeding through Green Hill, outer space, and countless worlds to save them from various villains. Sonic has also made a few friends out of those villains, either in the game world or in other canons and timelines. Sega has designated Sonic as its mascot, ensuring his immortality. Fan lore has tried putting him in cursed games, while comic creators added their own continuities.
When I talk with Sonic fans like Harel, they fondly look back at Sonic Adventure 2, and with good reason. This game showed Sonic facing a shadow archetype literally named Shadow and having to fight this “Ultimate Life Form”. Despite being outgunned and under-equipped, complete with a fake Chaos Emerald, Sonic uses his observations of Shadow’s powers with the placebo effect and an abundance of well-earned confidence. Even though he knows the emerald is fake, Sonic makes it work for him. He confronts the doppelgänger who is framing him for terrorism, calling Shadow the fake despite being the ultimate life form. He also changes tactics when seeing a weapon that could destroy the Earth.
Sonic’s big heart also has a positive impact on his stories; he doesn’t always need his super speed or Super Sonic Mode to turn the tide and save the world. In Sonic Unleashed, the hedgehog rescues a little guy named Chip. When Chip remembers who he is — a deity who rebuilds the world after it’s destroyed but was awakened too early along with the apocalyptic enemy deity - the weight of this trauma hits him. Sonic convinces him that just by being alive and spending time with him, Chip has done a lot. Sonic becomes a werehog at night because of an entity known as Dark Gaia, but he hasn’t lost himself; he thinks it’s because Chip was with him. Chip disagrees, saying it’s Sonic’s unwillingness to succumb to the inner darkness that kept him from going full hog, so to speak, but he appreciates how the hedgehog has helped him regain his memories and purpose.
Just by being a good friend, Sonic helps a god. Chip tries to handle the Dark Gaia threat and world rebuilding on his own, saying that Sonic doesn’t have a reason to risk his life after all he did for Chip. He knows that fighting Dark Gaia will be difficult, but it won’t kill him; it can kill Sonic. Sonic responds, “Do I need a reason to help a friend?” Though Chip has to resume his place under the Earth once they defeat the threat, unable to return until it’s time for another natural apocalypse, he thanks Sonic for being his friend and gives the hedgehog his trademark necklace.
Yes, Sonic is arrogant, snarky, and sometimes overly confident about his abilities. We’ve seen games and shows where that arrogance causes the problem in the first place, such as in Sonic Lost World. He also uses that confidence as a superpower, defying preexisting rules set by various continuities. Some villains can’t believe those feats, while others like Eggman get frustrated.
Most video game mascots don’t undergo character development or personality changes. Sonic is no different; he remains a slightly arrogant hedgehog who cares about his friends and enjoys chili dogs. It helps that the problems Sonic causes don’t persist forever; he always fixes his mistakes. Though he hasn’t changed, he’s made a positive impact on the world.
What Has Sonic Accomplished?
The bigger question is what he hasn’t accomplished. He hasn’t learned how to swim in most continuities, but in Sonic’s defense, his body density works against him; Stitch in his namesake franchise has a similar issue. Not to mention he’d have to take a beginner class, and kindergartners easily bully him.
This furry blue hedgehog has spent his life accomplishing great feats. When he isn’t doing that, Sonic spends time with his friends, grills chili dogs, and basks in the sun by the beach. The narrative often justifies his self-confidence because he has many victories under his belt. When a loss knocks Sonic on his ass, it doesn’t leave any trauma or a bruised ego; if anything, Sonic gets a reminder that he has to learn from his mistakes because he knows how to adapt to a new situation. A Super Sonic mode doesn’t always save the day, so he must learn more about the latest monster of the week or Eggman’s newest takeover plot.
Here are some of Sonic's achievements over the years:
1. Saved the world more than once.
2. Performed Chaos Control with a fake emerald.
3. Traveled through time, somehow not causing a paradox.
4. Traveled through parallel universes (in the shows Sonic Boom and Sonic Prime, and in the DC crossover with the Justice League).
5. Traveled through storybooks come to life.
6. Competed in the Olympics with Super Mario.
7. Competed in road races against his friends and Eggman, and has won at least once.
8. Befriended more than one of his villains, helping save one from certain death. There are even a few continuities where he and Eggman are civil (off the clock, at least).
9. Starred in a Disney movie, courtesy of Wreck-It-Ralph. (While I haven’t seen the second movie, the book club scene made me laugh a lot.)
10. Turned into a werewolf.
11. Survived a murder mystery.
When You Don’t Remain the Same
Every year around my birthday, I do an internal review. How did the past year go? Did I accomplish the goals I had listed for myself? What am I doing with my life? How have I changed?
Ten years ago, I graduated from college. I got a Master’s Degree, an MBA in marketing. My first book had come out, and I felt really proud of it. The rest of 2016, however, kept hammering hit after hit. The Colbert Report's rendition of “It’s The End of the World, And We Know It” provides fairly apt Cliff's Notes.
It’s 2026. Another graduate school program has accepted me, and I’m waiting on another. I’ve published eight books, and I feel too embarrassed to promote most of them (that’s a whole other story). When not submitting fiction or articles to Superjump, I also publish a fair amount of nonfiction. Over the past ten years, I've drifted away from many friends, though some stuck fast, and I am grateful for them.
Sonic continues to run through Green Hill and thwart Eggman. No one contests his chili dog cooking. He holds onto his friends tightly; they would never betray him.
I’ve got one thing over Sonic: I do know how to swim, unlike his main canon appearance. (Harel told me he swims in some of the games.) But I empathize with his fear of drowning. And he is still a kid. I’ve become an adult. That means having to become more responsible, especially as the world keeps tossing curveballs at us.
The day when, or if, Sonic grows up would be terrible. He needs to stay young so the rest of us can handle getting older. Going fast doesn’t mean missing life; it means helping others enjoy it.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 devs were told that "no one" would like one of the RPG's best systems before it launched, lead says: "We didn't care"
Over a year on from its monumental launch, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche has been looking back on what he and his fellow devs at Sandfall Interactive were told before their RPG's release – namely, that "no one's going to like" it.
The mere concept of that seems completely impossible now that the game is out – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 became the second ever game after Baldur's Gate 3 to collect all five major Game of the Year awards last year, after all. But speaking to Konbini in a new episode of Video Game Club on YouTube (below), Broche says the devs were warned about their plans for the RPG's combat.
"With Clair Obscur, there are plenty of design decisions that are fundamentally flawed," Broche begins. "What we heard a lot before we released the game was: 'You're making a game that mixes the challenging aspects of an action game – with dodging and parrying – with turn-based gameplay. No one's going to like it. Turn-based players like turn-based games, and action players like action games.'"
Of course, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wasn't the first game to experiment with mechanics like this. Look at 1996's Super Mario RPG, which blended real-time action with its turn-based system – perfectly timed button presses make your attacks hit harder or blocks absorb more damage. A lot of players love this blend, and the Clair Obscur devs were no different when they were making their own game.
"We didn't care," Broche says of the warning Sandfall had received. "We think it's cool, we play it, and it's fun. We combined the two, and it worked. But fundamentally, there are a lot of design decisions that, from an outside or business perspective, make no sense at all."
In the same video, Broche explains that he thinks "imperfections" in games add to their charm, while "games that try to be perfect, that try to fix all their flaws – they're usually just really boring." By his own admission, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't perfect, either – just look at its "unbearable" minigames.
Pollock’s hat-trick powers England’s 11-try Nations Championship mauling of 14-man Fiji
Fiji 8-73 England
Scrum-half Simione Kuruvoli sent off before break
To say England needed to shine in sub-tropical Liverpool is the understatement of this protracted season. Had they slipped to a sixth straight Test defeat it would probably have been the end of Steve Borthwick’s tenure as head coach. Instead a one-sided romp, their first win since February, has given the management a little respite as they prepare to head to Argentina for the last leg of their continent-hopping summer itinerary.
In all honesty, though, Fiji were so disjointed and ill-disciplined for lengthy periods that the game resembled something close to a training run. A litany of botched offloads, silly penalties and back-pedalling mauls had long since allowed England to cruise away over the horizon even before Simione Kuruvoli was sent off just before half-time with his side already 35-3 behind.
Continue reading..."Single-player, narrative-driven gaming is here to stay," ex-PlayStation boss says: "It's how we built this business. That's what sustains it"
Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden is a big believer that "single player, narrative-driven gaming is here to stay," saying it's "what sustains" the business.
When you think of PlayStation's greatest hits, chances are, you're going to think of a whole bunch of single-player games. Whether it's The Last of Us, God of War, Uncharted, or Ghost of Tsushima, there's no doubt that games like this have been huge drivers of PlayStation's success, and although Sony has delved more into the world of live-service in recent years (to mixed success), Layden – former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America – says it's with single-player games the games business was built, and what'll continue to keep it going.
"I firmly believe that single player, narrative-driven gaming is here to stay," he tells PSI in an interview on YouTube (below). "It's how we built this business. That's what sustains it. It's a type of game where you can enjoy it by yourself and talk to friends about it. Maybe there's multiplayer, maybe there isn't.
"But I think essentially most of our great gaming experiences are when we allow ourselves to be immersed in that world with that character, to learn that story, more so than 'I got online with a bunch of friends and we played team deathmatch.'"
That's not to say that live-service games don't have their place, of course. Helldivers 2, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, has been hugely successful since its launch two years ago. However, we've obviously also seen a lot of live-service horror stories – Concord didn't even last two weeks before it was shut down for good, and while it still has plenty of fans, Destiny 2 has been in decline for a long time at this point, so much so that it's now received its final update.
It's worth noting that Layden's comments were made before Sony's announcement that it's killing physical discs for new PlayStation games in 2028, so he's not responding to that backlash here. In a separate interview about that decision, Layden called the move "dramatic," and suggested it could "heavily influence" Xbox and Nintendo's approach to physical games going forward.
Handheld gaming PCs are cooked
This month I've been: Inducting my daughter into a life of crime in Magical Princess, and constructing cozily cluttered dioramas in Shanty Town—two games I'm confident would also be fantastic on a handheld.
The idea of taking serious hardware horsepower on the go was always the dream of my misspent, console-gaming youth. Don't get me wrong, I've always loved how older handheld systems made a calling card out of their limitations (and in the case of Nintendo, offered a hardware gimmick or gaming experience you couldn't find anywhere else). The fact that now you can play many of the same games on a portable device that you can also play in your gamer den would've blown my younger self's mind.
Unfortunately, the dream-come-true of handheld gaming PCs feels like it is coming to an end.
Our Andy updates our handheld gaming PC deals each week and recently shared a shocking revelation: 'Somehow, the $1,000 Asus ROG Ally Xbox X is the best value gaming handheld I can think of right now.' If you've got the cash then, sure, the Asus ROG Ally Xbox X with its AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip, 24 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of onboard SSD storage makes sense for the asking price. But where does that leave you if you're on a much tighter budget?
The memory supply crisis has raised the pricing floor of all handhelds. Case in point, the device that we still rate as the best budget handheld gaming PC is the Steam Deck. The more affordable LCD models were quietly discontinued last year, leaving those looking to buy a Steam Deck new with only the very shiny OLED models to choose from. Years after release, the price for the base 512 GB OLED model has increased from $549 to $789. The 1 TB model has seen an almost 50% price increase, jumping from $649 to $949. The answer, then, to where that leaves the more budget-conscious? Without a paddle.
Despite this price hike (and the handheld's aged internals), both models of the Steam Deck sold out in North America shortly after the increase was announced back in May. The 1 TB model, which is going for £779 where I'm based in the UK, appears to be out of stock again at the time of writing. But I doubt this is a sustainable trend.
Let's zoom out a smidge. I update our best SSD deals every week, so I've not had the luxury of ignoring how storage prices have been climbing since the tail end of last year. Research suggests that memory prices are likely to rise as much as 50% in Q3 alone. Recent analysis by Bernstein suggests prices won't dip until 2028, when major manufacturers are expected to complete a number of capacity-increasing builds.
But here and now in 2026, it's not just gaming PC components that have seen price increases as a result of the memory supply crisis. For example, the Playstation 5 has seen three different price increases over the last six years and now costs a minimum of $650. I've written about it before but, despite buying a launch day PS5, it's becoming increasingly unlikely I'll pick up a PS6 day one. After all, if the PS5 Pro costs $900 today, how much more will the PS6 cost?
Hey, maybe Bernstein's predictions will bear out and hardware pricing will look a lot more sensible by the time Sony's next-gen console drops in 2028 or even 2029. But in the here and now, handheld gaming PCs remain in an arguably much more difficult position within the consumer market.
For those who don't already have a gaming PC, there's little doubt that a $650 base PS5 is going to look like the more economical option (particularly as Sony won't be bringing its handful of exclusives to PC in future, but maybe it's just me mourning the loss of, like, four games). If you already own a gaming PC, you'll likely want to save your pennies for increasingly expensive component upgrades. Where would a handheld feature in either budget?
The data suggests gamers generally are still willing to part with the cash for new hardware—though they aren't necessarily picking up a handheld gaming PC. A recent Circana report shared that the handheld of choice was overwhelmingly the Nintendo Switch 2, with the hybrid console largely credited for a year-over-year hardware spending increase that grew by 69%, climbing to $500 million this past March.
The Switch 2 saw its own price increase announced back in May, so it's worth pondering how much of this recent consumer clamour was motivated by a desire to scoop the console before it became more expensive. Even so, Nintendo's handheld is set to cost $500 from September 1 in the US.
There are plenty of PC gamers who have no interest in what the big N is doing these days, but a broad-view of today's gaming audience suggests a lot of gamers are more platform-agnostic. For instance, a 2023 Comscore report found 76% of gamers play across multiple platforms. Therefore, it's hard to ignore handheld gaming PC's most obvious competitor, even if the Switch 2 is underpowered compared to many of the available portable gaming options.
In short, the most performant handheld gaming PCs ask a price that's far too rich for my blood, and the best budget option is arguably not quite as compelling as Nintendo's offering (even after the price hike comes into effect later this year).
To paraphrase Andy's point, there's a chance gaming handhelds eventually revert to occupying a boutique niche for gamers with especially deep pockets. That's how they were in the before times prior to the Steam Deck's launch, with smaller Chinese outfits, such as OneXPlayer, releasing expensive, weak, poorly optimised devices. That's not really the future I want for handheld gaming PCs, but it's a strong possibility. However, given the state of, well, everything, I find myself taking a bleaker outlook.
The most performant handheld gaming PCs ask a price that's far too rich for my blood, and the best budget option is arguably not quite as compelling as Nintendo's offering.
In the longer term, it doesn't feel like handheld gaming PCs are the most economical proposition for brands or manufacturers either. For example, back in March Ayaneo suspended pre-orders for its uber-powerful Next 2 gaming handheld after costs approached 'twice the price we originally set'. To be clear, I strongly doubt Valve is going to pack it in with the Steam Deck any time soon. However, smaller companies with a much less diverse portfolio than, say, the company behind one of the largest storefronts for digital games, are likely to struggle.
What seems certain is that prices will continue to rise and meaningful chunks of the devices' audience will be priced out. My concern is that the maths may simply no longer math, and hardware companies will increasingly decide that handheld gaming PCs specifically just aren't worth it. For my wide-eyed younger self, I hope I'm wrong.