Eight and a Half Bit

“SweetJesuslookatthatwhalethatlooksawesome!”

That – or something along those unpunctuated lines, anyway – was the thought that ran through my head the first time I saw Sonic Adventure in action.

I was about 18 years old, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed university student with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart, years before I became the angry, whiskey-soaked misanthrope I am today. I was in Another World (a shop that sold video games, comic books and other cool stuff), and they had a then-brand-new Sega Dreamcast on display, the console hooked up to a TV monitor showing a Sonic Adventure gameplay demo on a loop.

The demo in question showcased the game’s opening level, Emerald Coast, the highlight being the now-famous sequence where Sonic sprints along a wooden bridge, closely pursued by a killer whale leaping through the water and smashing the bridge behind him. It was a brief sequence but also a thrilling and visually spectacular one that helped launch the blue hedgehog onto a new console generation in style. I bought a Dreamcast soon afterwards. (And later sold it to pay the rent, but that’s another story).

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