It was 1993 and he was stuck in the mall with 4 hours to kill and he had already shopped at the Babbages 6 times. So I was glad to find the free-to-use Sega Genesis display with Sonic the Hedgehog in the electronics section of Montgomery Wards. I had always been a fan of the Super Mario series and with its snappy 16-bit graphics and high-speed gameplay, Sonic was a great experience.
16 years later I was pleasantly surprised to see that Sonic is back and you can take it wherever you go on your BlackBerry thanks to EA mobile.
Now there are some BlackBerry games that started out as console games that can get the user high, mainly due to control issues. However, while there is a slight lag in gameplay on the BlackBerry, Sonic’s simple running and jumps transfer well to the phone and it isn’t long before you find yourself going from level 1 to level 4.
The game is identical to the Genesis. Race at high speeds, defy gravity, smash robots and collect rings to free the kingdom from the dominance of the evil scientist. It seems that some of the levels have been summarized, but that does not affect the fun factor of the game at all.
On a BlackBerry Tour I used the S and F keys to run left to right and easily jumped while running with the E key. And if I need to do something else, I easily paused or suspended the game to read an email or jump to the web.
Needless to say, it’s great to see Sonic again and the ease of play and portability only add to the experience.