Monday, August 30, 2010

Sonic the Hedgehog

As a child, I really loved playing the Sonic the Hedgehog games on the SEGA MegaDrive. Sadly, when nostalgia hit me one evening, I found out our console broke when we moved, meaning my mom threw out all of the old games.

I decided to search eBay for a pre-owned MegaDrive. I stumbled across one that was at the rather cheap price of six pounds, including delivery. The description claimed it also came with Sonic 1, but on closer inspection, the cartridge's paper seemed to have been torn off, with a label crudely placed on the front, written on in a scrawled script.

I thought nothing of it and decided to bid on it. Oddly, despite it having a day to go, I immediately won the item. I proceeded to payment, left my feedback, and it arrived within three days. The MegaDrive was in surprisingly good condition, considering the price; it was almost brand new, other than having smudged fingerprints. I blew into the labeled cartridge (old habits die hard, you see) and inserted it int the cartridge slot.

The TV screen flickered on. The familiar image of the SEGA logo faded in left to right, but instead of the joyus chorus, there was a cacophonous blast of static which lasted for longer than it should have.

This is where things got weirder. the title screen was polluted; black sludge poured into the sea and there were dark skies and lightning. The music was slower and in a dissonant minor key, and when Sonic popped out of marquee, he looked genuinely terrified and afraid. I thought this must have been some sort of hack until I hit start.

I saw Robotnik, in graphics far more realistic than possible for the time, holding a lifelike rabbit by the ears. He looked full of malice and hatred, his pince-nez glasses glinting as he revealed the machete in his other hand. He held it up to the defenseless animal's throat and slit it, blood pouring out like a fountain. Robotnik began to laugh, but it was almost like he was in the room with me; it was so realistic.

The game went to Green Hill Zone, where the music was replaced with a low buzzing drone. The background looked just like it did on the title screen and, again, Sonic looked visibly shaken. His skin was paler and he appeared to shake with fear. On running, he began to cry.

Nevertheless, I decided to play through as normal, just to see if this was some sort of cruel joke. I ended up losing rings against a Buzz Bomber, eventually. The noise on losing my rings was a harsh ringing, and I heard Robotnik chortle once more, his face flashing in the stormy background. Sonic hit the floor; I was unable to control him at this point as the Buzz Bomber began to descend on Sonic's helpless body.

The Buzz Bomber literally stabbed Sonic, and all I could hear were tortured screams. I couldn't take my eyes off of the crudely animated sprites of Sonic writhing in pain as the Buzz Bomber rammed into him. This went on for a good 30 seconds before the Buzz Bomber flew off, leaving a bloodied Sonic corpse behind. The screams subsided as the screen faded to black.

I heard incredibly deep murmurings in some sort of weird language that was possibly Japanese or Korean. Again, the hyper-realistic Dr. Robotnik faded into view, but this time he was holding an even more realistic Sonic by the head. Sonic was crying, begging for mercy, sheer terror in his cries, but this time Robotnik didn't have a knife.

He literally broke Sonic's neck, the sound reverberating, and I was 'treated' to the sight of Robotnik kicking the defenseless corpse of the hedgehog around, blood flying everywhere. Sonic's spikes were breaking off, while all the time, the distorted sounds of Robotnik's laughter and Sonic's screaming played.

A messages appeared in Japanese with a selection: Yes or No. I chose Yes, somehow driven to continue. I appeared back in Green Hill Zone, but this time there were graves where the totem poles were. Sonic was even more afraid, looking directly at the screen as if begging me not to continue, but I felt I had to.

When Robotnik appeared, there was a blast of loud cacophonous synth sound. Robotnik's face was contorted with sheer disgust for the hedgehog and before I even had a chance to attack, Robotnik's wrecking ball slammed into Sonic and crushed him against the side of the screen. Once more, the screams played, but the screen began to glitch terribly and turn gray, almost into television static.

Before I had a chance to hit the power button and take out the cartridge, I heard, very clearly, in a deep voice, "This was your fault, and your fault alone." I looked at the television and the hyper-realistic Robotnik's face from before occupied the entire screen.

The words 'Game Over' flashed over his face as I saw Sonic's hyper-realistic carcass fall and land on top of the letters, sliding off and hitting the 'floor.' All you could hear was Sonic whimpering, crying, and asking, "Why did you do this? Why?"

I promptly ripped the game out of the console and threw them both straight into the garbage. To this day, I have never seen that eBay seller online again. My computer returned 404s when searching in the history, and anyone I asked on the eBay forums claimed the user had never existed in the first place.

34 comments:

  1. This one is not so good ;x

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  2. Oh my gawd! A hyper-realistic Robotnik??!!


    *fail.

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  3. As someone who played Sonic as a kid, I found this pretty horrifying, but not scary. It started off good (save for the label torn off and title scrawled on the cartridge, which has become cliche) with the introduction screen, but once Robotnik gore popped up even before the first Green Hill level, it went downhill. Relied too much on gratuitous gore IMO and not enough on genuine creepiness.

    If I had to rate this, I'd give it a 5/10.

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  4. I'm sorry, it's not horrifiying, but it's O.K. The whole "label torn off and the title scrawled on the cartridge" is a cliche.

    6/10.

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  5. 'hyper relaistic' basicaly kills all storys.

    This is also so short it bearly works for an intro.

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  6. isnt the 'hyper realistic' thing stealing from squidward's suicide? still, pretty good job. 3/5

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  7. That was...good. Not scary but I did got goosebumps somehow. It is 12:12 pm after all. You can do better though. Try redoing it but by giving it more efforts. Make it longer and make us feel the F.E.A.R.

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  8. I've never played a Sonic game myself, but I have noticed that every Sonic pasta I've read so far has some "begging the player not to continue the game", mixed with "Sonic and/or Tails dying in some overly gruesome and bloody way", and seasoned with "Sonic being strangely animated for the game and suffering some traumatic event that leaves him sobbing and repeatedly asking 'why'". Maybe I'm just out of some loops from my lack of Sonic experience, but the recipe is getting old. xP

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  9. I'm sorry but once I saw the ytp of roboniks penis, I just can't be afraid of him.

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  10. As a game programmer and knowing of the Mega Drive's capabilities, this did not scare me. The title screen is somewhat plausible, but sonic looking scared? then, as you press start, robotnik shows up killing rabbits? wtf? The original game doesn't boot up like this. The rest is somewhat fine, but look up on this' thecnical side :3

    6/10

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    Replies
    1. Why are you pointing out this wasn't actually possible on the Mega Drive... when the story already does? Part of the point of the story is that this shouldn't be possible -- that it has to be supernatural because the system simply isn't capable of doing what's described.

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  11. Where can I get a copy of the Sonic Snuff game? It sounds horrible fascinating!

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  12. Hyper realistic was good but more description would really make me content in a good pasta. And the gore was good, but used to much for relying on a good story. You should have focused more on the fact that Sonic was in unbearably horrible torture and some connection, like you could feel something pleading for you to stop or something. And the whole, "Label ripped off and account not real" was retarded. Cliche. The account part should have been, "He was a very dedicated Sonic creator/fan who started to really focus his life on Sonic before killing himself" or something.






    overall-----6.5/10

    review---3~3.5/10

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  13. OMFG! U KILLED SONIKU!!! BASTUD!!!

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  14. ^ WTF? Also, nice history, except for the cliches. Keep going.

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  15. Gore does not make a scary story. Emotions, suspicions, and general "OMG! HE'S GONNA DIE!!!" moments make a good story. :)
    The cliches were a bit annoying too. They should be reserved more for laughs. Not for "creepy" video game stories.
    Good try though, a little less gore and more feeling and this would be a good story. :)

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  16. reading this, i was thinking "holy shit, this might get to me", and im not gunna lie, you did a good job of making me not wanna buy games off ebay or play sonic anymore, but, the things that pissed me off about this was that i felt that you took some stories from other stories that you've probably read, "Squidward's Suicide", and "Super Mario 64" come to mind when i was reading this, but i'll give you a 6 out of 10, because this shit still fucking bothered me and made me nervous to play sonic ever again, so, you didn't do to bad, keep it up man

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  17. this is defenitely fake,it's terrible.
    By terrible, i mean scary.
    nice job!

    7/10

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  18. This is good. But terrifying. So much horror in a childs game. Still bookmarking it ^_^

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  19. You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?

    ...Whoops, wrong post. xD

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  20. No hyper realistic skeletons popping out, so I'll have to mark this one down, I'm afraid.

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  21. STOP MAKING STUPID ASS VIDEO GAME PASTAS

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  22. Most of you guys are like "oh, it's stupid, it's cliche, it's not worth my time". Okay, I get this is fake and the blood may be a bit cliche, but imagine if you spent your childhood playing Sonic the Hedgehog, like me, and something like this REALLY happened. It has before. Whether demons do it, or hackers do it, it's possible for these things to happen, and they're scary as fuck.

    The story personally isn't my favorite, but I did like it.
    8/10

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  23. You know I'm kind of new to this 'Creepy Pasta' thing, and this actually got my heart racing a bit. I don't want to know how the other stories are going to make me.

    Wish me luck.

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    Replies
    1. if this scares you, then don't bother reading anything else. This pasta is shit.

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  24. This comment looks unusual, almost hyper-realistic.

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  25. I think he was playing a alpha copy of Sonic 06. I don't blame him for getting scared.

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  26. I wanna play that!! It sounds so cool!!

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  27. hyper realistic. >.>

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  28. Man, this is a really bad creepypasta.

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  29. what im a sonic fan that wont happen to i think
    :onedaviduok

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  30. A good creepypasta, but some of the word choices were...not correct. De matchade inte stämningen i berättelsen. It was as if you were trying to write a fanfiction that had lots of detail. If you were, I'd like it a lot, but otherwise, I'd give this a 5/10. Fortsätt att skriva! :)

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  31. I feel like a just read a creepy joke or something like this. This didn't horrified me, and yet I've been playing Sonic old-school games since my childhood.
    It's full of cliches...
    Sorry, but to me, it's 2/10, I almost laughed every time he said "hyper-realistic"...
    At least, the guy knew that cartridge hacking is possible, good reference.

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