[Let’s Play] Sonic the Hedgehog Adventure Gamebook 1: Metal City Mayhem

[Thaluikhain]

Half vote for getting on the thingy that has arrived.

[deaddmwalking]

Sounds like that's how we escape the exploding robot. Half vote for plugging in the cable.

[JourneymanN00b]

Thank you for voting. I will break the 0.5-0.5 vote tie by having Sonic plug in the black cable.

98
Sonic has a brainwave. He takes a cable, plugs one end into the socket on the control desk – it’s a tight fit but he pushes it hard until it slides in – and the other end into his Game Gear. It fits perfectly. He flashes you a smile and flicks the ‘ON’ switch. The screen lights up with the words ‘Platinum robot remote control initiated’. Sonic lets out a loud ‘Yahoo!’ and press down on the control button. The robot swings right and then left in response. It works! He can steer it with no problem, but, as he quickly learns, there’s no control for stopping it. It just keeps on marching.

Which way should Sonic steer the robot; towards the edge of the highest cliff in the Green Hill Zone (turn to 69), towards the deepest lake in the Zone (turn to 265), or through the thickest forest in the Zone (turn to 231)?

Please make your votes by 7:00 PM PDT or a choice reaches 3 votes to guarantee that they will be counted.

[deaddmwalking]

3/4 vote for the cliff. Figure we walk off, call an air taxi, put on shades as we turn away from the explosion.

[Thaluikhain]

Cliff seems a reasonable choice, yeah.

[deaddmwalking]

Choo-Choo M@*F#rs

[JourneymanN00b]

Votes registered; steering the robot towards the edge of the highest cliff in the Green Hill Zone.

69
The giant robot turns until it’s heading towards the cliff. The ground shakes, and Sonic can see rocks and boulders toppling off and rolling down to the bottom. Animals and birds flee from the path of the colossal construction as it approaches.

One giant foot lands on the edge of the cliff. The other lifts into the air, hangs for a moment and descends – to land on nothing. The Technobot begins to overlbalance, falling slowly at first, and then faster and faster. Sonic is carried with it as the vast machine hurtles through the air, carried downwards by the one enemy that not even Robotnik could beat – gravity. The knees hit the ground first, and the impact breaks the machine into pieces while it’s still falling. The enormous middle section lands next, bouncing back hundreds of metres into the air, so that it’s going up while the head section – and Sonic – are still coming down.

Sonic hits with a thump that knocks all the wind out of him. The massive head lands nearby and shatters into a kazillion pieces that tinkle and crash and finally lie still. Sonic lies where he is. Everything is oddly quiet, apart from a strange whistling noise. It’s growing louder. A huge shadow covers Sonic; he looks up to see the remains of the robot’s stomach section fall out of the sky onto him, squashing him flat! So close – and yet so far. Sonic saved the Zone and his friends, but he couldn’t save himself. A very brave try.

Ouch. A very accurate description of Sonic’s tragic end to this adventure. Since there is a lot of fatigue present with this gamebook, I will conclude this Let’s Play and move on to hosting the next Let’s Play that I planned to do last year, which is ACE Gamebook 02 – The Wicked Wizard of Oz. Thank you to everyone who participated in this Let’s Play, and I hope to see everyone in the next one.

However, if at least 3 players show interest in resurrecting Sonic, I will do so.

[Thaluikhain]

Thanks for running this.

Also, Sonic winning, but sacrificing his own life in the process, seems like a decent end to the story.

[deaddmwalking]

Was the water option the 'good ending'?

I feel like vulnerability to water on Earth is a pretty silly weakness (I'm thinking of you, Signs), and with the size of the robot I doubted full immersion is possible.

[JourneymanN00b]

Was the water option the 'good ending'?

I feel like vulnerability to water on Earth is a pretty silly weakness (I'm thinking of you, Signs), and with the size of the robot I doubted full immersion is possible.

Yes, heading to the deepest lake in the Zone would have led to the good ending.

[deaddmwalking]

Thank you for running this. It seems all of these types of books offer some blind choices, but I feel like this one helped lead to some bad ones. The robot has been walking through a storm so it doesn't seem bothered by water... I also feel like the 'free shot' when we walked to the controls versus getting Robotnik to shoot at them later was essentially the same thing - nothing to indicate that you had to take an unrelated option to get a chance to dodge. But that's the book. We had extra lives for a reason. So still fun and a change of pace. I wouldn't mind another video game themed book.

It's a-me, Mario.