Late to the Game(s) - Retro! Reissued! Remastered! Oh my!

  Sonic the Hedgehog turns 30 this year. If he were human, the eponymous speedster – “born” today, June 23, 1991, when his first game released for Sega Genesis – would be a Millennial. Like his much maligned generation, while you may love him or hate him, there is no denying the speedy blue hedgehog’s cultural significance.  That original Sonic the Hedgehog game has spawned a number of sequel games, in addition to a comic book series published by Archie Comics, at least two animated shows (the original, poorly drawn cartoon featuring the voice of Steve Urkel, Jaleel White, and a later series with higher production value and an anime inspired style), and a live action/CGI movie.  The story told over the course of those games, shows, comics, and film is convoluted, inconsistent, and sometimes downright confusing. The basic premise is that Doctor Robotnik, née Eggman, is an evil genius who wants to take over the world (or the multiverse) and Sonic and friends have to...

Right now, in celebrate of Sega's 60th Anniversary, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is free to claim on Steam.   Go claim your copy, fire up your desktop or laptop, and enjoy some high speed retro fun. Rated E for Everyone.  Read more about the history of Sega in our Late to the Game(s) column at Carter County Times .

It's always dangerous to go alone. Always!   So, I'm well into my second week of furlough. I should be trying a little harder to look for other jobs. Or, I should be writing new content (like this post) for the blog. Since I noticed yesterday that the company not only took down the website for my old newspapers and redirected all links them to the closest daily paper they still operate, but also haven't (yet) migrated the content from that site, I should be posting all the relevant content here – things like my coverage of Bigfoot sightings and UFO reports, and video game reviews and esports stories. Instead, I've been playing a lot of NES and SNES era Legend of Zelda . See, a while back I got a year of free Nintendo online service for the Switch. I used it a little. I tried to get my stepson interested in playing the old school Super Mario Bros. titles with me, which resulted in much eye-rolling and pleas to play Super Mario Odyssey instead, "Alone, pleas...

Your kids may not "get it," but that's ok.   I don't have a lot of money, but there are things I'm willing to throw a few dollars at every now and then. For example, there are certain charities, like the AbleGamers Foundation , that I'll always give to or support in any way I can. (And if you aren't familiar with AbleGamers, take a minute to learn more about them . They really do fantastic work to make gaming an accessible hobby for everyone.) It's one of the reasons why I fell in love with the Humble Bundles , and have been supporting them - and growing my Steam collection to an unmanageable size - for years now. I have supported Humble Bundles for PC games, for console games, for mobile games, for e-books and audio books and comic books and - you get the picture. It's hard for me to say "no" to a book about building my own coffee roaster for a dollar, especially when I can decide how much of that dollar goes to charity, how much ...